Light's Last Gasp
by Psudocode Samurai
Summary: Based on MrWriterWriter's challenge What Else is in the Scroll, Naruto, during the scroll incident forsakes the Shadow Clone Technique in favor of what looks to be a dragon's egg. What will happen to the blond when what hatches is not what he expected?
1. Chapter 1: Naruto's New Pet

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Aliens. Oh yes, I went there.

A/N: I know what you're thinking…oh god, not another of those damned movie spinoffs. But oh no, I'm not doing that to you. Why? Because the new movies SUCK. No, I'm drawing from the comics (Aliens and AvP), three movies, the books, and the first two AvP games for my Aliens, I'll even draw from that AvP P2 strat game, if that thing had a skirmish mode I'd still be playing it… Why not the last game? Because they went off those damn AvP movies for some reason. I will say I had a lot of fun in the Aliens campaign, but I just couldn't get into the Pred. or Marines sides of the story, it sucked. And yes, I need story to play those games properly. I loved dropping in as a Pred. and just listening to the humans and their rather entertaining stories before finishing them, same with the Alien. Now, for this tale, it's actually a way of me to take up Mr. WriterWriter's challenge of 'what else is in the scroll' so this will be a bashy fic, probably have him paired with at least Haku, and will be going to town on Team 7, Neji (prick) Kiba (I don't know why, I don't like him, I love the rest of his family to death, but not him). Now, one thing you will learn eventually, these bugs are far from normal. As shown in the other stories of Aliens depending on what the bug latches onto they change. In Alien 3 you got the runner from the dog. In the comics you get all kinds, the most well known being the pred. alien. In this instance the chakra in the ninja will affect them differently, altering their bodies as well as thoughts and memories. That said, I want to let you all see it over the next few chapters. Naruto will change, not radically at first, but he will definitely be…unique.

On another note, I liked the first half of this story a lot, and I may end up recycling it for other versions of this challenge, one where he ends up meeting an Arrencar, however, that is the extent of a bleach cross, I don't want Naruto suddenly becoming a Soul Reaper, like in so many tales, I just like some of the baddies...

* * *

Light's Last Gasp

Chapter 1, Naruto's New Pet

The sun was just beginning to set as a young boy moved throughout the back alleys and darted under the eaves of stores. His task was simple, and yet it was going to be one of the most difficult he would have to do in his short life.

His task? Steal the 'forbidden scroll' that rested in the God of Shinobi's personal library. He had seen it before; on one of the many times he had been allowed to stay in the tower while his surrogate grandfather had meetings to attend to. He had always been told never to touch it, and now he knew why, apparently if you took the scroll you were allowed to bypass the academy and become a shinobi of the village without all the hassle of the final tests and dealing with so many of the other students.

It made sense, if you were good enough to get in and take it, you must be good enough to become a ninja.

He bit back a snicker as he climbed onto a rooftop that came within a mere ten feet of the outer walls of the Hokage Tower, something he always thought was foolish, even a first year student could toss a grapple that far and have it stick. Instead he aimed a bit higher, hooking one of the eves of the tower itself before he secured it to a chimney and began to shimmy across. For a moment he cursed his choice of clothing, but if he was going to get the scroll to his teacher in the required timeframe then he was going to have to hurry, so no time to change.

Glancing over the edge of the overhang he noted the animal masked guards that were idly standing watch over the front entrance, not for the first time he had to wonder how it was these guys got their ranks, he had no doubt that they were tough in a straight up fight, but even he knew that if things were being done right then you would never fight in the first place. Idly he looked over the pair and marked where the best places would be to put a kunai to either kill or disable the guards, putting to practice one of the many target and anatomy classes that he had attended, well, that he had spied on after being kicked out.

Kunai to third lumbar vertebrae, shruiken to the subclavian artery, kick to the femoral artery, the list went on, even when looking at what looked to be a young woman from behind he saw something of an overlay of targets, something that just seemed to come naturally to him after so much practice. Over twenty places from his current vantage point, while he doubted he could kill her at his skill level, he bet he could disable her.

Putting those thought out of his head he moved up to the plaster wall of the tower, the smooth surface was pristine and he ran his hand over it in appreciation before he moved on. Taking a moment he pulled out a small roll of ninja wire as well as a pair of kunai and took the time to tie them to his feet before pulling another pair. Holding his blades in his teeth for a moment he reached into one of his jumpsuits many pockets into a small pouch of chalk dust he had squirreled away and rubs a bit on his hands before taking the blades and with two sharp thrusts the blades held. Taking a moment to moved the kunai around in the hole a bit, widening it before he kicked his right foot hard into the wall at about knee high and began his accent, doing his best to make the strikes as irregular as possible, just in case anyone paying a bit more attention would wonder at the strange sounds of steel on stone.

Not for the first time he felt the urge to laugh, the kunai had been developed originally from a masonry tool, and while he didn't consider it to be the most efficient of weapons, you couldn't deny the results when you applied them back to their original purpose. Slowly the boy reached the third floor of the tower, for experience he knew that few guards patrolled up this high, most of them having been on the first and second floors, after all, if you have gotten up that far, then surely the first of the guards are dead already, right?

Slipping a small mirror from his sleeve he peered over the windowsill and had to quickly bite back a yelp of surprise as the Hokage himself moved past the window and looked to be heading down the stairs. He cursed himself for not checking earlier when he would leave the tower, after all, he had been here that very morning after he had painted the monument and could have asked then, of course at that time he didn't know he would be doing this…

Giving himself a slow count of twenty he eased back up, doing his best to ignore the burning in his thighs at the exertion of hanging on the wall like that, before he pitched himself into the tower and held a handstand for a moment so that his feet wouldn't make too much noise with the blades. Slowly he righted himself and removed the knives before slinking down the hall to his goal, the Hokage's office.

Taking a moment to spray a small amount of oil from a skin in one of his pouches on the hinges he ran a kunai along the seams of the door to check for wires before he eased the door open, the oil keeping the normally loud door silent as he moved into the dimly lit room. He moved quickly over to the study's door, thoughts of stealth forgotten for the moment as he knew that the guards would come to the outside of the door soon, now that the Hokage was headed home. Spotting his target he snatched it off its perch and just as he was about to turn he hear someone clearing his throat.

"Well well, Naruto, what could bring you to my office at this hour?"

Naruto felt a cold sweat breakout over the whole of his body as he turned slowly to see his Jiji standing before him, his arms crossed before him with his face screwed up into a glare.

"E…eheh…um…you see…. Oiroke no Jutsu!"

* * *

Naruto was panting heavily as he made his way into the forest outside of the walls of Konoha, his lungs burning from his mad flight from the tower after disabling the Hokage, not for the first time he wondered what would happen if he had worked for another village with a skill like that…and shuddered, the old man would never stand a chance…

Whipping the sweat from his brow he placed the scroll on the ground and carefully unrolled it, Mizuki-sensei said he had to bring him the scroll, he never said anything against him learning something from it before then. Taking a rock from behind a tree he used it to hold down part of its thick, heavily weathered parchment before he sat down and began to go through it.

"Let's see…Shadow Clones…damnit…my worst subject…I don't have time for this…" He further unrolled the scroll and began to skim, mumbling to himself the whole time, "'Soul Eater? I don't want my soul eaten! Pass... Egg of the King? Lame, next... Kamehameha? Who would want some dumb turtle hermit's attack? Flash Sword? That sounds neat...but I don't have a sword...though the scroll did have that dumb reverse blade thingy, never mind....Spirit gun? What the hell's a 'gun'? Next..."

The young boy was debating on giving up he jumped several entries ahead, simply looking for something that piqued his interest, as he moved through, the large scroll steadily getting smaller and smaller when he spotted it, his lips curling into a grin as he read it aloud, "The Dragon's Egg…forbidden item said to-blah blah blah…I want a DRAGON!" Seeing the seal close to the bottom on the rather lengthily explanation he bit his thumb, recognizing a blood seal when he saw one and smeared his thumb across it while channeling a bit of chakra.

With a dull flash and a puff of smoke the young man was blown back slightly by the surprisingly large item that appeared, it was a large egg, something that easily reached his waist and was as big around as his shoulders, admittedly his shoulders were not very large due to poor eating habits, but that was hardly his fault. He eased a bit closer to what looked to be a large, deep green, almost black, egg. Naruto reached out cautiously to the egg and gave it a slight poke and gasped, it didn't feel like any egg he had ever felt before.

The egg felt more…fleshy, eggs were supposed to be hard right? Then again, he had never seen a dragon's egg before, so who was he to judge. Moving a bit closer he ran a hand gently over the odd surface, seeing that at the top of the egg there seemed to be four fine lines, like seems. As he was about to get a bit closer, knowing that you had to keep a egg warm the thing _shuddered_ Naruto jerked back for a minute before a massive grin spread across his face, he could see something through the 'shell' wiggling inside, soon he was going to own a _dragon_!

Seating himself once more he leaned against the large egg and began to whisper quietly to it, telling it how he would take care of it, that it would never be alone like he had been, that even if everyone else hated it he would love it for as long as they were together. Almost as if in response to his soft-spoken words the egg shuddered again making the genin hopeful smile and let out a happy laugh. "Don't worry little guy, it's going to be great, I promise, and I never go back on my promises, believe it."

To this the egg seemed to move again, this time worse than ever before and as he gazed at the egg he saw the top….open? The egg didn't crack, it didn't shatter, like it should have, something wasn't trying to push its way out like with a chicken, no, the top of the leather-like egg opened of its own volition, showing a strange, white/grey mass inside that seemed to be quivering, "Awww….he's scared…"

Suddenly a good bit of the substance seemed to be sucked into nothingness to show a rather boney looking structure, but as Naruto was reaching out to take the baby into his hands he saw it twitch and seem to lunge slightly, making Naruto fall back in shock as the dragon leapt out of the egg, and latched onto the face of the man who had been sneaking up behind him. At first Naruto had simply been confused, then he spotted the glint of steel in the man's hand, a kunai. He knew from long nights in the city that if someone was behind you with a knife, it was rarely good... If his new pet hadn't acted, he would be dead….

He saw the silver haired man struggle for a moment, his hands clawing at the thing on his face before he seemed to go far too still. Naruto edged closer to the man and had to bite back another scream, his teacher, Mizuki, looked to be asleep with some…_thing_ latched onto his face. At first Naruto wasn't sure what to make of it, it looked a lot like a spider, each of its long, multi-segmented legs had a firm hold on his sensei's head. However, that's where the similarities ended, he didn't see anything like eyes, this creature had a long, snake like tail that was wrapped around his neck and seemed to tighten now and again as Mizuki gave the odd twitch, beyond that, the whole thing was a flesh color, not a deep brown, black or green like other spiders. Taking a moment to give Mizuki an experimental jab but he didn't react.

Knowing better than to leave an enemy with weapons he quickly pulled away the kunai and the large shruiken that were strapped to the man's back, securing them and hiding them nearby so that he could maybe comeback later for them. Looking around he cursed slightly, having noticed that he was somewhat in the open and started dragging Mizuki deeper into the forest, careful not to disturb his savior, assuming that he could get it off when it was done with whatever it was doing. Running back quickly he pushed the flaps back close on the egg and swiped blood onto the seal once more, making the egg vanish before he rolled up the scroll and moving back to his new pet.

Reaching out a hesitant hand he gently touched the back of the 'spider' only to have it tighten up on Mizuki once more before it seemed to relax, seeming to know that the boy wasn't trying to pull it off, "I…I don't know what you are little guy, but he would have killed me if you hadn't jumped on him…thanks…I…I just hope that when you get done that Mizuki-teme doesn't kill us…

* * *

Naruto sat beside the still form of his teacher for what felt like hours, just calmly watching the steady rise and fall of the chunin's chest as though he had been hypnotized. He knew from the shouts coming from the village that he would be caught soon, he was just helping that it wasn't the dog masked ANBU…that man had been assigned to 'guard' him a few times only to seem to sit there with his book while a group of civilians had their fun with him. Every time he claimed that he had gotten away from him and he had come too late, and every time the other ANBU would believe him without question. He pulled his knees to his chest and shuddered at the thought, the dog, Inu, wasn't the only one…at least he didn't join in, but it had still been hell for him, knowing that the one that the old man trusted didn't care…

Before he could delve deeper into his thoughts he noticed a flurry of movement from Mizuki, he saw the odd spider unwrap its tail before it started to move away, only for Mizuki to grab it and throw it off of him with a scream of terror. "W-What the FUCK is that thing!" The chunin looked around franticly before it's eyes settled on Naruto and narrowed, taking a moment to wipe the drool and slime from his mouth he was on Naruto before he could so much as blink and had torn off his jacket and began to run through his pockets before pulling out a plaster covered kunai. "YOU! You little _FREAK_ you caused that _THING_ to attack me!" Mizuki lunged forward, intent on ending the boy's life when he seemed to freeze and clutch at his chest, stumbling and falling to his knees before looking up at Naruto through his bangs, "W-what did you do! What's happening!"

As Naruto crab-walked away from him franticly he ran into something, looking up with terror filled eyes he almost cried out in joy, "Iruka-sensei!"

"Naruto, what the hell is going on! Why did you steal the scroll!"

"He…he said…said I could"

"I-Iruka…help me…the demon…he…" suddenly his voice was cut off as he vomited, a surprising amount of blood mixed with the bile.

"N-Naurto, what did you do?"

Naruto scrambled behind his teacher as Mizuki started for the pair once more, still unable to get to his feet, "He…he tried to kill me! Then my…my friend jumped on him and knocked him out, now he's trying again…Sensei, don't let him get me!"

Iruka winced slightly as the pure fear in Naurto's voice rang true, he had known how brave he was, how he would never back down before anything or anyone, but having someone he trusted like Mizuki turn on him like that…"It's OK Naruto, I won't let him do anything to you, but you have to know, it's your word against his…it doesn't look good…"

Had Mizuki been in a proper state of mind he would have smiled, played along, but the odd motion in his chest, the pain racing through him, was far too much, "D-Demon…scum, what did you do! What did you do Kyuubi!"

Naruto and Iruka both froze, Naruto's mind racing at what his former teacher had said, even while Iruka's mind had ground to a halt. The secret was out, the box had been opened. Turning slowly he saw Naruto on his knees shaking while looking at his hands, "Na-Naruto, you have to understand-"

The boy looked up into the man's eyes, someone he considered a brother, if not a father, his eyes filled with betrayal and pain, "Y…you knew?"

The teacher dropped down to one knee and placed his hands on his shoulders, part of him noticing that the boy's frame seemed far too small, "Naruto, you have to understand, the Fourth couldn't kill Kyuubi, so he sealed it into a baby to protect the village, he had no choice, and you were the only one born that night."

Now it all became clear to him, why he was attacked on his birthdays, why he was thrown out of stores…why he was _hunted_, "W-why didn't anyone tell-tell me I was the Kyuubi…"

Naruto's world erupted in pain as he looked up at Iruka in shock, the man had _slapped_ him! "Naruto! You are not the Kyuubi, you are prison, like how the scroll there holds so much, so do you!"

That seemed to snap him out of his stupor, he dashed past Mizuki who had curled himself into a ball while coughing and groaning in pain, Iruka looked from the traitor to his young charge for a moment before running after the boy, it looked like Mizuki wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He found the boy searching franticly through the bushes and undergrowth, seeming to become more and more frantic as he searched, "Nauruto…what are you looking for?"

He dropped limply to his knees and stares blankly into the night for a moment, "My friend…the one that saved me…he's gone…"

"Naruto, what friend?"

"My pet spider…"

Iruka never thought he would hear that from Naruto of all people, he knew that he had been friends with Shino in school, but to have a pet spider? Well, at least that explained why Mizuki was in so much pain, spider venom was far from pleasant. Taking a moment to help Naruto collect Mizuki's weapons as the boy shouldered the scroll again, taking a moment to scrub at his eyes, before they moved back to the downed chunin.

"Alright teme…let's go, if you're lucky the Hokage will let you go to the hospital before the venom gets you." They got nothing from Mizuki, Iruka sighed in annoyance, the bastard must have passed out, he knelt down and moved to pick up him up in the fireman's carry only to fall back and scramble away with a scream of horror, Naruto was little better as the pair looked down at the body of the former teacher, the man's face was twisted in a pain ridden death mask as his hands were curled into claws that seemed to be trying to grab his chest. There, just over his heart, was a large hole, two palms wide that looked as though something had punched through him from behind, his ribs and flesh hanging sickeningly from his torso. The pair were so shocked at the gory display that they failed to notice the bloody, snake like trail that lead away from the body into the undergrowth.

"N-Naruto…what kinda spider was that again?"

"I-It came from the scroll…"

Iruka's blood ran cold as he looked up at Naruto in horror, he had pulled something out of the scroll, and now, whatever it was, it was loose.

* * *

"Naruto, explain this to me again…from the beginning…"

Naruto was fidgeting in the overstuffed chain in the Hokage's office while Iruka stood beside him, a comforting hand on his shoulder and a small smile, while he didn't feel the smile reach his eyes; he knew he had to put on a brave face for him. Naruto took a shaky breath and launched into his story once more, by the end both the Hokage was eyeing the scroll with a bit of fear. There was a reason that the scroll was forbidden, it contained a number of things that reached back to before the founding of the village, no one knew what the scroll held in its entirety. He knew what he himself had put in there, but the Fourth, Second and First? He had no idea, he didn't have the courage to look himself, he had been told specifically by his sensei not to, and he had heeded those words more so than almost anything else in his life.

"So this…spider, it jumped on Mizuki and knocked him out, then later on it seemed to run off, and several minutes thereafter Mizuki was dead. Is that correct?"

He gave a hesitant nod as the Hokage lit his pipe and took a deep puff, the somewhat comforting sent of cherries and cloves filling the air. "Naruto…I'm not going to say that listening to your teacher like that was wrong…but you must learn to look beneath the beneath. I've told you before not to touch the scroll, and while Mizuki may have told you otherwise, you need to listen to your Hokage over a Chunin."

He winced at that, when you put it that way…he was an idiot… "S-sorry…I just wanted to graduate so bad…and I only failed because of those stupid clones…"

Iruka gave a sad smile while Sarutobi looked confused, "Naruto, what do you mean you have trouble with clones?"

Naruto demonstrated and at once a sickly, if not dead duplicate of himself was slumped on the floor, "See…"

The Hokage arched an eyebrow at that before looking to Iruka, "Why haven't you corrected his mistake yes, Iruka-kun?"

The teacher looked at him in confusion, "Sir, I've checked Naruto's handsigns a dozen times, their perfect, honestly, I don't know what he is doing wrong."

"And you never thought to come to me with this, considering his condition?"

That gave him pause, could it be the fox? "Sir?"

He let out a dry chuckle before tossing Naruto an odd card. "Naruto, do me a favor and channel some chakra into that card, and I think we can fix your clone problem."

The boy's eyes lit up in joy as he pushed his chakra into the paper, way too much chakra at that, at once the card flew from his fingertips only to start fluttering to the ground again, the paper slitting in half before both parts dropped to the floor with a wet 'plop' Iruka and Sarutobi's eyes widened in shock before looking back to Naruto who looked confused, Iruka mused his hair with a grin before patting him on the back, "Congratulations Naruto, you already have two affinities! You'll be a Jonin in no time!"

Naruto looked up to the man in confusion, but before he could speak they heard a hiss from the paper, the trio looked at it to see the water evaporating before they burst into flames, the blaze reaching the height of the desktop before Sarutobi doused it with a water jutsu before laughing, "And it seems a _very_ high affinity for fire…we can assume your tenet is responsible for that, Naruto-kun."

It took him a moment to shake off the shock of seeing fire come from water like it had, but the mention of his…burden, snapped him out of it, "H-Hokage-sama…" That made the older duo freeze, Naruto never showed respect like that… "Why did you lie to me…about why they hated me…"

He let out a heavy sigh as he tapped out his pipe in a small ashtray, "Naruto…if I had my way you never would have found out…I wanted you to grow-up without having to bear that burden…for as long as you could. I made a law when you were born in hopes of you living a normal life…but you have seen how well that ended."

Naruto felt the familiar sting of tears in his eyes as he stood slowly from his chair, "I-If that's all Hokage-sama…I need some time to think…"

"Naruto…come to the tower when you're ready…I teach you a clone that will let you pass the exam, alright?"

He gave an almost invisible nod before walking from the room and heading back to his home, Iruka turned to his leader with a frown, "That could have gone better…"

The Hokage gave a weak smile and leaned back in his chair, pulling the hat from his head and running a hand over his head, "Indeed…however, you have to admit, Naruto-kun deserves his headband, clones or no, he still snuck into the tower unseen, disabled me, and escaped with the scroll…should he have been an enemy I would be dead, and the village would have its most dangerous weapon in enemy hands…"

Iruka hadn't thought of that, and the year before they had passed a boy that couldn't use any of the jutsu required, even if he had done much better on the other areas of the test. Naruto may not have done well, but he has still done two of the three required jutsu. Hopefully in a few days they would have one more genin, one of the most promising at that.

* * *

Naruto dropped his coat onto the floor with a sigh, not caring about hanging the damaged garment as he trudged through the little apartment, bypassing his three-legged sofa and moving to the bathroom, absently running through his nightly routine before he fell into his bed, rolling over and letting a tear roll down his cheek, wondering what tomorrow may hold for him.

As sleep took the young man he failed to notice the open window.

He never heard the slight skittering noise.

He never saw the shadow move slowly onto his bed.

He never felt the weight on his chest.

The small, snake like creature looked at the being curiously, its short life had been an interesting one thus far. It had memories, memories of things that didn't make sense to it, but it know, on a fundamental level that it would understand, in time. It did know that there should be more of its kind, it should have been in a position to feed of its 'mother', yet there were others there, things that were not like it, so it ran.

The little creature curled up on itself, it was alone. Somehow it knew, from the way this one was acting in the woods that they were similar, his sent was one of earth and blood, not unlike its own. While it didn't understand the words the being had spoken when it had found it's 'mother' it could sense an affection in its actions, a lack of hostility, and if anything, concern for its wellbeing. Part of the creature knew that it was a mistake to be here, that it was a risk until it was able to feed again, at least off of more than that furred creature it found in the woods.

The thing on its ear was fun to play with though.

The serpent rose slightly as it looked to the window to see the spindly legs of its creator moving into the room, called by the one it had given birth to. Silently the snake moved up to the 'spider' and looked into its body, seeing the last of its kind that it was carrying in hopes of depositing, one last time, before it would die. Its 'father' was already on its last minutes, it had little time. Looking into it it's mind, into it's very body the instructions were simple, _'live'_.

* * *

The last thing Naruto knew of that night, was a horrible nightmare.

A nightmare of _smothering_.


	2. Chapter 2: Monsters

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Aliens.

A/N: Sorry this one took me a bit, I had the chapter written for a while now, but I was editing it as I kinda gave away to much in it . The monster you know is far less scary than the one you don't ya?

It's a little on the shorter side, I know, but it's just a bridge explaining a few things.

Special thanks to LoPe21 for his help with the bit at the end ^_^ I wasn't sure what I was wanting to do there (As I want to save the apartment for the next chapter) and he had a good idea ^_^

UPDATE: I got a photobucket account and uped my pics for this story, the two comic pages that inspired it, and some of the character designs for the fem aliens.

And no, none will have 'sausage heads' as I've heard them called ^_^

* * *

Light's Last Gasp

Chapter 2: Monsters…

* * *

Awareness

It's something that most take for granted.

The reason is simply; most spend more time in this state than it's opposite.

For Naruto it's a bit more even.

First came the tingling of the other extremities, the pin-pricks of sensation were disturbing, like a limb that had been asleep for far too long.

Next came sound, again, the act of simply hearing what is going on around you is common, but if you have been asleep, or unconscious, that first bit of noise is either a blessing or a curse. If you were dreaming of something wonderful, say, a ramen bowl the size of a swimming pool, any kind, so long as it could hold a person, then it's something to be cursed and hated with an all consuming passion.

Again, sight can be treated the same way. The rising sun coming through your window is often something that will illicit more than a little cursing, and for many it's then followed by a punch from your significant other, or your pet bothering you.

For Naruto, it was a unique combination of these. First the accursed tingling that made him hold as still as humanly possible, less the pain become all the more entertaining. Then was sound, the steady electronic rhythm of a bit of equipment confusing him slightly. Last came sight, and the cursing and reflex to roll over only spurred more as the tingling erupted anew.

The first thing he saw when he finally was able to open his eyes and not scream was the sterile white of the pillow he was laying on.

That wasn't his.

His hadn't been white when they were 'new'.

Slowly pulling himself up to a seated position he winced, not at the pain in his limbs, but at the white walls of the hospital.

Before he could take in any more of the room he saw the door open to reveal a pretty young girl wearing the pale pink of the day shift's nursing uniforms. The woman didn't seem to notice him at first, as though she were assuming he would still be asleep, it was only when she came face to face with the monitors that her eyes widened and swiveled to look him in the eye not unlike a turret.

"Um…Hi?"

The girl let out a yelp of shock and to his surprise quickly slapped her hands into the ram hand-sign and started pulsing her chakra. After the fourth pulse the room was obscured with white smoke and a shower of leaves.

"Report!"

Stepping from the smoke were more people than he had ever seen in a hospital room that he had occupied; the Hokage, Iruka, the old man's personal doctor, three ANBU as well as a massive, scared man with a bandana covering his head, still, it didn't cover up much.

"S-Sir, he's awake."

The blond raised a hand looking more than a bit confused and gave a weak wave. The whole of the group did the same as the nurse, unnerving the young boy before he was surrounded by three of the adults.

"Naruto-kun, what happened?"

"When did you wake up?"

"Are you feeling alright?"

The teen shrank slightly back into the bed as he was crowded, his fear and shock making the scared one step up and place a hand on his leader and the teacher's shoulders.

"You all ask one more question, and I think you'll knock him out again."

Iruka had the good grace to look sheepish as both he and the doctor stepped back, "Naruto-kun, again, what happened?"

"W-what do you mean?"

The gathered people shared looks before, with a jerk of the doctor's head, they stepped out of the room. Once they had left the Hokage sat gently on the bed, "Naruto…I'm not sure how to say this, but you've been in the hospital for the last two weeks." The boy's eyes widened in shock, "You've been in a coma, after you hadn't come to see me after two days I got worried and went to check up on you. You wouldn't wake up no matter what I did…your apartment was covered in blood…you scared the shit out of me my boy."

Naruto winced at his 'jii-jii', he had never heard the man swear. "B-But…" That's when Naruto noticed just how thirsty he was, he sounded like a frog…

The old man gave him a glass of water and as a shaking hand reached out he gasped, his hands…didn't look right…Ignoring the glass for a moment he looked closer. It looked like someone had snuck in and painted his nails…not to mention someone had cut them to fine points. Further, his knuckles looked a bit more boney, his hands larger. All in all he could only say one thing.

"What the fuck?"

Sarutobi bit back a laugh as the blond finally took the water and downed the large glass as thought it were a shot. "That's not the only thing I have to tell you about Naruto. Let's start with the last thing you remember."

The boy was silent for a while, having a bit of trouble separating memories from dreams, "I…I had just told you about what came out of the scroll, after that I went home, got ready for bed, went to sleep…but I had strange dreams…

"Like?"

"Like I couldn't breathe, but not the pain of someone choking me…then of places I'd never seen…and some kind of monsters…but for some reason they didn't seem scary to me…like I knew them, and they wouldn't hurt me. They were capturing animals, other…things, things I'd never even thought were possible. Then more of my…pets…would jump on them, and later on made more of the monsters."

The Hokage was silent for a long while, trying to understand what the blond had been seeing. "Naruto…I'm not sure that what you were dreaming of were really, well, dreams."

He arched an eyebrow at that. "What do you mean jii-jii?"

"Naruto, what did these monsters look like? Can you describe them?"

Naruto glowered at the old man for a moment before relenting, "Well, they were big, and they all looked different, some more like the animals or other things that they…came out of…most of them had long tails with big blades on the end, all had claws. Their heads were all weird, and I never saw any eyes, their heads were most of the time really long and kinda curved and like tubes with lots of bumps…." Naruto gestured with his hands to show the length and the shape. "It looked like most lived underground, in these big tunnels, like termites. One of the monsters was HUGE, even when it stood next to the other big ones, it had this big crest on its head, and laid the eggs. What do you think they mean?"

Sarutobi flashed his chakra once and his doctor entered the room once more. Naruto had always liked the older woman, unlike most of those in the hospital she would bring him books, even read to him. However, this time the older woman was so fierce looking that he was shocked the old man wasn't heading for the hills. The only other time he saw her look like that was when he had found the orange book in the Hokage's desk, he never even got to open it, just dropped the book with a shout of horror when a half dozen syringes were embedded in the cover.

It was a bad day.

"My Lord?"

Now he knew something was up. Askua-baa-chan was always using their names, "Can you show Naruto the results of your scans?"

Hesitating a moment the doctor produced a file and handed it to Naruto, in confusing he opened the file and almost threw it across the room.

There, looking back at him, was the monster from his dream, but much, much smaller, thought the tail was still long. "W-what the hell old man! That's IT!"

The doctor shot the village leader a confused, but horrified look. "Sarutobi, what is he babbling about?"

Naruto was turning the bit of plastic over and every way he could, trying to take in all the details of the creature. "Well…it seems Naruto dreamed of this creature, and in them there were a great many more…like ants."

The older woman paled at that and stared at the blond for many long moments, seeming to study him, and almost expecting him to grow a second head. "O-Old man…what IS this?"

"Naruto…that's a scan of your chest cavity."

Before the duo could blink the blond had ripped his shirt open and seemed to be grabbing at his own skin, tears streaming down his cheeks even as his longer nails began to slice his flesh, before he could get further the Hokage snapped through a few hand-signs and pressed two fingers to the boy's forehead, at once he went ridged and fell back onto the bed, the doctor rushing around and placing bandages soaked in some kind of noxious smelling liquid to his chest. "Naruto, you need to calm down, as far as we can tell it's not hurting you, if anything it's been helping you."

The old man saw the look of pure, undiluted terror in the boy's blue eyes and sighed, after another quick jutsu he let the boy speak, almost regretting it from the moment he did so, "No! Jii-jii, you can do it, don't let me live! PLEASE! I've seen what they do! It's horrible! They'll kill EVERYTHING! Make more of them! It happened to Mizuki! There's one out there already! Please! Don't let another one out!"

Silencing the boy once more he tried to make his voice as calm as possible, doing his best to stem his own tears at the boy's desperate plea for death, "Naruto, like I said, it's not hurting you, it looks like it never properly formed, instead it looks like it's joined itself to places throughout your body. You saw it with your hands; it's stimulating your bone and muscle growth. It's changed your blood and the nature of your digestive system. It looks like your food will pass through this…alien organism, letting your body process things that could normally kill you. We've never seen anything like it before."

Naruto's eyes seemed to lose the desperate edge of fear somewhat, but not by a lot, once more the Hokage let him speak, "H-Hokage-dono…please…I don't want to hurt anyone…"

To the boy's surprise the elderly duo's eyes hardened, "You'll never hurt anyone Naruto-kun, now don't mess with these bandages for a bit…your blood is very dangerous now, so we can't afford it to get everywhere."

Naruto looked at the doctor in confusion as he looked to his blood covered fingers, wondering what she meant, and voiced the question. The older woman stepped up with cotton ball held firmly in a set of tongs. She swiped the fluffy white ball over his hand, looking to be cleaning him up, but to his shock the ball seemed to start smoking, the bit of fluff seeming to melt into nothingness before the tips of the metal tongs did the same. The melted slag fell from the handle a few moments later and to his horror landed on his stomach. At once his eyes were screwed shut but the pain never came. Cracking an eye he looked down to see the still smoldering substance slide from lightly scared abs to the surface of the bed where it stayed.

"We had to soak your sheets and the gauze in a base solution. It seems the creature has altered your blood to be an incredibly powerful acid, in addition your heart rate and blood pressure is much higher than a normal person's, I have little doubt that when it finally stabilizes that cutting you will be a grave mistake." She flipped a few pages in the chart as she continued. "To aid in that increased blood pressure your heart seems to have enlarged slightly. As the Hokage pointed out your bone structure is changing, it seems that your bone's basic size and density have increased. Again, your digestive system, thanks to the symbiosis, seems to be able to handle almost any organic matter. I don't think you could, say, take a bite out of a tree, but anything else…maybe. The creature also seems to be stimulating the rate that you absorb minerals, but a lot of this is just conjecture until you have been able to sit down and eat something. Your bones have a marked increase in iron, in addition your nails and teeth have changed, as you may have noticed. After the first week you…actually lost your old teeth, the new ones that grew in are much sharper and stronger."

Naruto's head was spinning as Miazaki-san rattled off the things on the chart. A regeneration rate that may end up slowing his aging, increased muscle density, so while he may remain lean, there would be little doubt he could beat most in raw strength, he was a bit taller and had filled out, as the creature seemed to counteract much of his malnourishment, making them exchange his saline bags so fast it seemed like he was trying to rehydrate after a month in Suna's deserts. Lastly it seemed the long, serpent like tail had extended towards his stomach and seemed to merge into his chakra network.

"O-Old man…" The Hokage, who had been about to light his pipe, arched an eyebrow. "Am I a monster now…"

The man's eyes softened but before he could open his mouth the older woman had pulled him into a bone crushing hug, "Don't you EVER say such a thing! Naruto, your body may not be normal anymore, but that's not your fault! This creature that has set up shop in you may have changed you, but your still you where it counts!"

The boy was still trapped in his paralysis but was fighting back the tears all the same, "Where…you just said that-"

She pressed a finger over his lips before she poked him in the forehead, "Here," She placed her other hand gently over his heart, "And here. So long as you keep these, you'll never be a monster."

The Hokage's eyes softened as the boy let his tears flow, taking a moment to release the jutsu he moved forward to embrace the boy as well, the young man releasing his fears for the night into the white coat of the doctor before they allowed the others in.

Taking a bit longer to compose himself, with the help of Iruka, he looked up into the eyes of the scared man who was looking more than a bit put out at having to stand in the hall. "Alright boy. Time for the Q and A." Naruto swallowed thickly before nodding. "Why did you take the scroll?"

"I-I already to-"

"Tell me. I know you gave your report."

"I was told by Mizuki-teme that if I could get the scroll and give it to him I would be skilled enough to become a genin, that I would pass."

"And you believed him. Why."

Never once were these real questions, Naruto realized, they were demands. "He…He was my teacher."

The large man crossed his arms, his eyes hardening as he seemed to study him for a moment, "And what did he teach you."

Naruto struggled to think for a moment what it was that the chunin had done for him, and came up with empty. Naruto lowered his head in shame, "Nothing."

Iruka scowled at the thought, he had left the man in charge of his class many a time, Naruto had to have learned something. "Records show that on two dozen occasions he lead the class. What did he teach you!"

Naruto shrank back into the bed as he looked to the Hokage who was simply staring out the window. "N-Nothi-" His eyes widened in terror as the man took him by the remains of his gown and pulled him within an inch of his nose.

"Don't LIE to me!"

Naruto, for a moment, thought he would cry, however, he had done enough of that already it seemed, as a cold fury built in his belly at being called a liar. "I'M NOT! Every time he took over he kicked me out of class! When we were learning to harness our chakra, when we were learning the basic three, when we had our first kunai class, village history, bloodline natures, explosive tag use and safety…Every time…I wasn't allowed to be there. I would sit outside just under the window and took notes…but I couldn't see hand signs or the blackboard…."

The scared man seemed to search his eyes for a moment before releasing the boy and stepping back, looking to the Hokage who was gripping the arms of his chair hard enough that the wood was starting to crack, when he looked to the teacher it seemed the man was about to cry. The ANBU exchanged looks with one another and cursed, this kid, improperly trained and outright sabotaged, had gained access to one of the greatest secrets of the village and had disabled the Hokage, all under their nose, the same thought ran through their heads, 'what would he have been like if he was really trained?'

"I believe you. Now, the reason I'm here…" Dull blue eyes met deep brown as Naruto seemed resigned to his fate. "Why is there so much blood in your apartment?"

Naruto tilted his head in confusion, "What?"

Askua stepped forward, "Naruto-kun, when Lord Hokage found you your apartment had heavy bloodstains on the carpets in your living room, it's walls and much of the furniture, he had feared the worse, but you seemed to be unharmed."

Naruto paled at the thought of his apartment and just gaped, "I-I don't know! I told the old man what I remember!"

The large ninja stared a bit longer, unnerving the blond to no end before he grunted, "Alright, let's say I believe you. What do you think happened?"

He gave a half shrug, "I don't know…maybe someone threw blood all over my place again…wouldn't be the first time." The last bit was half mumbled, but the seasoned interrogator heard it as easily as if he had shouted it from the top of the monument. He wheeled on the Hokage, glaring at the elderly man who looked to be showing his years.

"Explain."

The elderly leader simply stared at the man for a long moment before sighing and nodding, "Ibiki-san, you know as well as I what he has been through. The vandalism is but the tamest thing that has happened to him."

The bear of a man seemed to whither a bit before dropping into a chair beside the bed, a weak smile coming to his features. "OK kid…interrogation over. I know you didn't have anything to do with it, we just had to make sure."

"With what?"

"We had the blood in your apartment tested, it looks to have come from two people, people we can't find anywhere in the village. If it was you or the fox we had to find out."

Naruto flinched at the mention of the fox before looking to the doctor with wide eyes, "W-What will that thing do to my seal!"

The gathered shinobi looked to one another, tense and fidgeting slightly. They had been so concerned with what the creature was doing to his body they never considered the seal! At once the Hokage was on his feet and pulling Naruto's gown up, making the blond protest, seeing that four strangers were in the room with him, two of which were women, after a moment of struggling they got a look at the seal and saw that it was unharmed. The old man let out a sigh of relief before dropping back into his chair, a hand rubbing the bridge of his nose while he tried to calm his heart.

"Naruto…sometimes I wonder how it is I still have this job...You thought of something none of us did, even while you know the least about what's going on. It looks to be perfect, but I still think it would be a good idea if I sent for Jiraiya to be on the safe side." Seeing Naruto's questioning look he smiled, "He's Konoha's resident seal master, though he has to be out of town most of the time."

Naruto nodded at that before lying back in the bed. "So…what happens now?"

Sarutobi gave him a weak smile before placing a scroll on his nightstand, "As I promised Naruto-kun, this is the clone technique I I told you about. Seeing as you may be here a bit longer look it over and when the time comes come to me and demonstrate that you are able to perform the technique. Squads are to be assigned on Friday, if you don't have it by then we will find someone to take you as an apprentice for a time, until you can be placed on another squad."

"So when can I leave?"

Askua stepped forward and gave him a comforting smile, "Well, I think I can let you go in time for bed, but for now there are a few tests I would like to perform…"

Naruto's eyes widened in fear as the woman pulled a pouch from behind her back, the black cloth bundle seeming to appear as if from nowhere. With a snap of her wrist the cloth unraveled to show a brace of syringes, bottles of medicine and pouches of pills. His eyes cut to the Hokage only to see the wisps of smoke in the now empty chair.

Naruto's screams could be heard clear across town, causing a certain Uchiha to miss one of his hand signs and the fireball he had been practicing stalled half way out, causing the boy to start hacking and coughing bits of charred flesh onto the ground as he rolled on the ground in pain.

Absently rubbing his arms where the doctor had been drawing out blood samples and discovering how his system reacted with different medications and healing techniques. It was an enlightening experience for the aged doctor.

For him…less so.

Though he did find out he needed to keep balms with liberal amounts of the base solution mixed into it to ensure that his blood wouldn't simply burn through gauze. Special glass needles were needed to allow for injections and IV's otherwise the metal would be gone in seconds. He seemed to get more out of blood and soldier pills than others because of his unique tenant, and the little creature seemed to be causing some of his bones to start fusing together for added defense, namely his rib cage, in addition the sternum seemed to be extending and encasing the creature to protect itself even further.

Sighing as he considered what may be happening to him in the long run he moved back to his apartment, absently wondering what may happen to him in the months to come. Would it mature and punch its way out of him? Would he become more like the monsters in his dreams? Would the one that was already running about find him and kill him? Kill Jii-Jii? Sakura-chan?

He was still wrestling with these thoughts when the shock of his abrupt awakening finally caught up with him. Feeling the wave of exhaustion wash over him he let himself give in to it. As his eyes fluttered closed he felt a feathery touch brush his thoughts. Before his eyes closed completely he thought he saw a something at his window but before he could focus on it darkness washed over him and he knew no more.


	3. Chapter 3: Changes

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Aliens

A/N: First, sorry this one took me a bit to belt out, so I tried to make it a bit longer to make up for it. Honestly I was going to come out with a chapter of Rapture, but I felt I should even out the chapter numbers with this and Shards just for my own OCD tendencies, oh, and as an FYI, I kinda have a running gag with Light that Naruto will be knocked out a lot until his body evens out a bit more, just a heads up. This one was rather fun to write, and while I originally wanted to get in a fight with Sauske I opted to save that for a time when I could devote more energy to it.

To my reviewers you all have my deepest thanks, I really wasn't expecting folk to like this or Shards as much as they have and I must admit I'm humbled by your kind words, I'll try and keep up the good work (At least that's what you all are claiming :P) and try and speed up my posts a bit, just have life getting in the way a bit these days (Though it seems to be more the fact that friends are drafting me to go see a lot of midnight movies…I don't want to see Toy Story 3….A Team I'm 50/50 on…)

Oh! Dont forget to look at my mate's works, Whitefragon17 (Who has started an Eragon/Naruto cross, it's looking goo thus far ^_^) and LoPe21's Dream of Somewhere Warm (Naruto is taken in by an insane Kureani, it's a lot of fun ^_^)

Lastly, for those looking for something different, go check out Xutzy's fic Sweet Release, I have to say, I don't think I've seen a more original idea of a bloodline on all this site, keep up the good work mate ^_^

Anyway, enough ramblings, here you go ^_^

* * *

Light's Last Gasp

Chapter 3: Changes

* * *

Of all the sensations the blond had woken up to these past several days…make that two weeks, this was a new one…

The feeling of blood rushing to his head at a rate that was likely to make the appendage in question pop like an overfilled balloon.

Maybe it was the blood flow, maybe it was his body's new little guest, he couldn't be sure, what he did know was that his dreams were chilling. Not unlike those from his apparent two week coma.

He saw flashes of more strange worlds, filled with stranger animals and plants. Some had more moons that they should, others looked to be moons themselves, tiny things when compared to the massive worlds that seemed to hover in their skies.

Part of him wondered how they weren't swallowed up entirely.

He also saw other things; some were more humans, seemingly from all walks of life. Some had strange looking armor or clothing, others bizarre weapons that looked more like iron boards that spat fire. Some were like humans, but so much larger, wearing odd masks and body mesh.

Through it all there was one thing in common.

The monsters.

The massive serpents that would arrive, spread, flourish.

Kill.

They were all separate, large and small colonies alike, and yet, they were one as well.

With each there was the core, the mother of them all.

A queen.

When they got large enough, when there were enough of the serpents, their structure, their behavior, seemed to change.

It let the queen's talk, well, as much as they could talk.

They would send signals, images, and instincts to one another.

Lots of food.

Danger.

Nothing more.

It was strange, alien, humbling, to be connected to so much, and yet be your own.

He couldn't understand what it all meant, it made no sense. Somehow he was seeing these things as though they were memories long known to him, he could tell that much. Hundreds if not thousands of years worth of images being thrust into his mind in the form of these odd dreams.

If there was one thing he knew he would come away from this with, it would be an indifference to blood and gore.

With a pained groan he let his eyes flutter open only to be met with confusion, right now he knew he was in his room, even if it was a blood soaked nightmare, but it was his position in the room that was confusing him.

Right now, he seemed to be close to the ceiling.

Upside down.

He looked around the dimly lit room in mild panic before he saw something shift in the shadows, making his body freeze in fear.

Again, he saw something move, this time a bit faster than the seemingly cautious motion from before, whatever it was was hiding somewhat by the foot of his bed. He focused every ounce of his attention there, searching desperately for sign of his would-be captor when he felt it.

Something moving slightly on his foot.

He looked up quickly to see what could have caused it and froze, there, wrapped securely around his foot and keeping him aloft what a what looked like a long, almost vertebra like coil that ended in a vicious looking scythe like blade.

A tail.

With wide, unbelieving eyes he slowly traced the appendage, watching it as it seemed to hug the ceiling joint before it snaked down the wall to where he had spotted the movement.

In the glint of the moon's light he saw them.

Two, almost glowing red, eyes.

Before his terrified scream could echo through the apartment he felt a chill run up his spine, right behind him, perhaps an inch from his ear, he felt a sudden, humid breath.

And a nerve wracking, heart stopping hiss.

He couldn't feel the tears of pure, unrefined terror slipping down his cheeks. He was unmindful of the spreading warmth of oh his voided bladder, he knew what it was that was behind him, there was no doubt in his mind that right now, he was going to die. With a keening wail he let his body go limp. With everything that had happened to him as of late this was the breaking point for him. His mind deciding to shut down somewhat, filling him with pleasant memories of his time at the ramen stand, of sitting in jii-jii's office and playing with the old man's hat.

He never felt himself being lowered down to the soft bed.

He was unmindful of the sudden presence at his sides that seemed to try and snuggle up with him, even as the beings long, segmented tails curled almost protectively around his midsection.

Naruto was unsure how much time had passed, it could have been days, it could have been mere minuets. All he knew was that the crippling fear and hopelessness had faded somewhat from him, enough at least to let him look around the apartment once more. However, as he tried to move he noticed that two of his limbs were currently pinned, namely his arms.

Pinned by two things that felt oddly soft and warm.

Then he felt the movement along his midsection and looked down at the tails wrapped firmly around him, making his body break out into another cold sweat. Slowly he looked to his right and what was once a fear filled psyche was overcome with confusion.

That didn't look right.

There, currently hugging his arm fiercely was what looked to be a little eight year old girl. In the dim light he couldn't make out much, darker hair, pale skin, what looked to be some kind of ornament on her head as well as surprisingly revealing clothing.

And a tail.

Letting out a yelp he leapt up and scrambled into the corner of the small apartment, the feel of the almost crust like harness of his worn carpet largely forgotten as he tried to shrink away from the creature on his bed.

Right now the rational and the panic were at war in his head. The panic was showing image after image of the destruction the monsters would bring. The rational pointed out that one had saved him already, and if it had wanted to hurt him it would have when he was asleep, not just cuddle up next to him.

Panicked blue eyes were locked on the bed as he fought to keep his breathing under control when, much to his shock he saw not one, but _two_ of the young girls sit up on his bed, letting out wide yawns as they rubbed their eyes with what look like gloved hands. After a slight stretch the new one, a girl with apparently blue hair, looked at him and blinked owlishly before giving a kind smile. The other seeming to follow her gaze and frown a bit, her arms crossing before her in a pout.

Naruto was at a loss. He knew these two weren't normal, but at the same time, he was pretty certain they weren't like the things he had been seeing in his dreams. "W-who are you?"

The duo only cocked their heads in a disturbingly similar manor. "Do you have names? How did you get in here?" This time they looked to one another before in unison they leapt gracefully off the bed, clearing the distance to him in one easy jump to squat before him, seeming to study him. "You…don't understand me, do you?"

The pair just seemed to ignore him as they moved close and began to run hands along his clothing, now and again pausing to look at each other and smile before tugging at it, sometimes chewing it or, much to his fear, would bring up the bladed tail to run up under a sleeve. They seemed to delight in this for a time before the purple haired one cut a small piece off.

He let out a squawk of protest making her drop it and shrink back, before he could blink the blue haired one was between the two, crouched low with her tail brought up over one shoulder ready to lance out at him, her teeth bared as her hands were brought forward in prep to strike, the now apparent claws making him shrink back once more.

After a few seconds of the standoff the blue seemed to stiffen before shrinking back, seeing the glowering face of the purple who then moved slowly forward, snatched back up the bit of cloth she had cut from his sleeve and moved away with the blue once more, the pair sniffing and running fingers over it. As before they would sometimes pause and look to one another, seemingly talking in ways he couldn't begin to understand before looking to him and then the cloth once more.

"Um…I'm Naruto…" The pair seemed to jump at his sudden words before looking to him again with the same cocked heads. He pushed a hand to his chest, "Naruto. I'm Naruto."

The pair looked to each other again before seeming to forget him. After a few more minutes he saw the blue suddenly stand up and scamper away, the odd sound of something crunching in the other room for a minute echoed through the room before she came back.

And Naruto almost lost his lunch.

Held firmly in her teeth was what looked to be a cat, a very dead, very raw cat. She quickly ran up, seeming to go as easily on all fours as on two, before dropping it at the feet of the purple who promptly dropped the cloth, tore the body of the cat in half and tossed part of it to the blue. Naruto felt bile welling up in his throat as he watched the two quickly make short work of the feline before carefully cleaning the blood from their bodies with disturbingly long tongues and agile fingers.

After their meal was seemingly finished the purple let out another yawn before locking eyes on Naruto and seeming to simply appear at his side. His body locked up in fear as he saw those claws and tail once more, however, to his shock, she simply snatched up his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders, letting out a little contented coo before snuggling into his side and letting her eyes drift close.

Naruto looked from the odd girl to the other who was poking the cloth again curiously before she suddenly seemed to stiffen and, much to his dismay, leapt at his wall, letting her claws sink into the soft sheetrock before she crawled up the side and flattened herself.

Naruto's confusion at the odd behavior vanished as he heard the sound of soft clicks coming from his door.

If he had been doing anything else he would be rather certain that he wouldn't have heard the sounds of the knob turning or even the slight creak of the door opening.

But he did hear the footsteps.

He did see the figure loom into his bedroom.

He could see the glint of steel in the figure's hands.

"Well, well, well…seems the little demon found himself a whore…Let's see what color a demon lover's blood is…shall we?"

Naruto was moving before he really understood what he was doing, pulling the purple haired girl closer to him as he rolled over to shield her with his body, his eyes screwed up waiting for the pain of the kunai.

A pain that never came.

Instead all he heard was surprised grunt followed by the sickening squelch of something being punched through flesh.

Chancing a glance behind him he saw the hooded figure standing there in shock, his body lifted a few inches off the ground as the long, bladed tail he had feared so much was protruding from his chest. The man seemed to simply stare at it in confusion for a moment before his hands came up to grasp it tightly.

The pair of dainty arms appeared that then encircled his waist were unnoticed by him, but the suddenly surge of the tail being thrust further through his chest was impossible to ignore. The strangled cry from the man cut off as the tail was suddenly pulled back, letting the man fall forward limply. The blue haired girl cradling his body and dragging it away into his other room.

As the adrenalin that had kept him up finally faded the horror of the moment truly dawned on him before he slumped once more into unconsciousness.

* * *

Dawn came the next day slowly for Naruto, for a few seconds he thought it all simply a dream, but after finding the rather fresh bloodstains as well as the discarded knife… Pausing long enough to take up the blade he made a quick circuit of the room and took up whatever he could find that was still useable. A few more of his rather beaten up supplies, his last set of clothing, a small extra wallet he had stashed under some floorboards, two containers of instant ramen, and a small, rather ratty looking plush fox that Ayame had given him when he was little. Stripping the soiled sheet from his bed he cut a section that still seemed clean enough and wrapped the items inside before dashing out of the house. He hadn't see any signs of the strange girls thus far, and if he had his way about it he wouldn't see them ever again.

As the door slammed shut behind him he never noticed the extra sets of holes in the wall.

He never noticed the odd, almost stone like structures that were so much like the eggs he had found, the pods suspended from the corners of the ceiling by almost crystal like black and grey stone.

Naruto took his time for once as he moved through the tower, last night's events still fresh in his mind, though a part of him was wondering if it wasn't all just some kind of a strange fever dream. Knocking quietly on the door he heard the welcoming voice of the old man, he pushed open the door cautiously before seeing the smiling man's face.

"Naruto-kun, come on in, how are you feeling?"

Naruto let a small smile form as he moved into the room, "Um…Hokage-sama…' Sarutobi winced slightly, this couldn't be good… "I think we have a problem…"

The remaining of the day for Naruto was spent in the Hokage's office as an ANBU team moved to his apartment to search for anything that could really stand out. They had found blood samples once more, and managed to get fingerprints from the dagger that matched those of a civilian that worked in a local tannery, but still no signs of the missing man. The masked black ops had also returned with a strange material that they were calling some kind of resin, apparently there had been a good deal of it scattered in his kitchen when they arrived, but as with the man, no signs on the girls the boy had spotted the previous night.

"Naruto, I think it's safe to say at this point that you are going to be moving."

"Duh…"

"Now now, none of that, I was assuming you would have come back yesterday after collecting your belongings so that I could move you somewhere a bit more secure, but we see what happened there. There was a small house I had been saving for you for when you graduated, as a reward. You only have two neighbors, but as it stands most of the houses there are unpopulated. After the Uchiha Massacre most of the people living there relocated to homes closer to the core of the village due to the lack of police, but because of your…situation I think this would be rather beneficial. As it stands the two that are living there are some of my most trusted men, one of whom you met yesterday at the hospital, Morino-san, head of the Torture and Interrogation division as well as his apprentice Mitarashi-san. I've called them here to guide you there so please try and be respectful. You will be seeing a lot of each other I would think."

Naruto gave the elderly leader a wide smile, a home of his own? He couldn't believe his luck! Maybe all this hell was going to be worth something after all, if only they could find those girls then maybe he could sleep a little easier at night. "No worries Jii-Jii! If they don't bother me, I won't bother them!"

"Naruto, you don't have to worry about that, be friendly and I'm certain they will return it." His soft smile was helping to ease the boy's nerves somewhat; Ibiki had scared the hell out of the other day.

"O-Ok…I'll do my best."

"I know you will. You should take the time to look over that scroll I gave you, If you have any questions then make sure to let me know."

The teen nodded as he unrolled the parchment and began to study the carefully inked instructions. It seemed easy enough, keep the image in mind that you wanted to clone to look like, force a single hand sign, shunt chakra into the technique, if you used to much then it would fail just like his clones in the academy would, but unlike those it was possible to use that excess to form yet more clones, making it quite hard to actually overwhelm the technique. It would operate best when there was a ready source of water nearby, however a skilled water user could actually pull from the air around him or other sources of life, even an opponent.

Naruto gaped slightly at that, it was such a cool idea that it seemed to overpower everything else he had read about the technique, the idea of killing an opponent with this jutsu, in order to make more copies of himself to fight more foes? It was brilliant!

As Naruto was getting ready for his first attempt, doing his best to sort out his thoughts before using the technique there came another knock at the door, at the hokage's call the door swung open to show two figures in trench coats, the first, in a black coat, was bear of a man with the blue bandana, the second in tan gave Naruto pause.

And a massive blush.

Quite the beauty of a woman stepped in behind him, five five, purple hair pulled up into a peacock tail, a devil-may-care smile and swagger to her steps as she moved to stand beside Ibiki, however, the source of the blush was rather evident to all in the room, the woman's choice of attire that was simply fishnets and a skirt short enough to almost make it a belt. Naruto was quick to avert his gaze and did his best to fight back the blood filling his face.

He may be a pervert, hell, he knew he was, but he knew quite well that you didn't look so obviously unless you wanted to get a fist to the face or a foot to the groin.

"Ah, just the pair I wanted to see!"

"Well ya old man, you called us here. Who's the squirt?" Anko knew very well who the boy was, hell, she was sure there wasn't a person in the whole of the village who couldn't tell you his name, but she loved getting a rise out of people, and the slight tick mark that developed on his brow was enough for her.

For now.

"This is going to be your new neighbor, Naruto. Naruto, this is Ibiki Marino and Anko Mitarashi, Special Jonin and, as I told you, heads of the T&I division."

The blond rose and gave the pair a small bow, surprising the Hokage, "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, Genin hopeful, although it looks like I may have to be an apprentice now."

Ibiki cocked an eyebrow at that, "Oh?"

"Yes sir, I can't make normal bushin. So the Hokage gave me a solid clone technique that will work with my affinities." Naruto lifted the scroll, letting the two pick up the name 'Mizu'.

Anko's eyes widened slightly as she looked at the kid, "Wait, Affinities? Like, plural? As in more than one?"

Naruto nodded in synch with the Hokage, "Indeed, Naruto here possesses three at the moment, wind, water, and a strong fire affinity. However, if is he unable to learn the technique in time then he will not be able to be placed on a genin team. After some consideration of his skills from two weeks ago I've decided that another year in the academy would be a waste of his potential, so should he fail to master it in time I will place him with a jonin for training."

This bit of information made the pair gape slightly, the look rather comical on the normally stone faced Ibiki, Anko herself only had earth thus far, Ibiki had two, fire and lightning, but for a kid who had yet to grow his first chin hairs to have _three_?

The duo looked to one another before sharing shockingly similar grins. "Hokage-sama, if it comes down to that I think I know exactly who would be up for it."

Naruto cocked his head in confusion, and slight fear at their eager looks, as Anko seemed to be almost bouncing on the balls of her feet, the act making her rather generous bust bob, something that Naruto knew he would be killed for if he looked at, Sarutobi arched an eyebrow, "Oh? What do you have in mind Ibiki-san?"

"Sir, as I have informed you recently, ' The Hokage fought the sheepish look that tried to form on his features, his paperwork had been backlogged ever since Naruto had been found unconscious, 'Anko has learned everything she can from me in my field, as it stands, our apprenticeship is now completed. To that end, she has expressed a desire to try and take on a genin team this year, however due to…elements beyond her control she was unable to attend the jonin test this year. Therefore I believe that this may be the best solution for all involved. Anko will be able to teach on a one-on-one basis, helping to prep her for a future team, and Naruto will get the training he needs in order to, hopeful, attend the chinin exams as team support one day, if not join Anko's future team as their third."

Both Anko and Naruto turned to the aged leader with massive grins on their face, for Naruto the horror of the previous night seemed to simply evaporate as he thought of getting some real training, he had seen the woman around town before, she had never once given him a dirty look, instead she would typically laugh and cheer at his pranks or chase after him as part of his escapades. For Anko she knew the kid would be a sponge for information and training as he had received so little, letting him be almost a blank slate for her teachings, despite the fact that he was, debatably, better than her when it came to stealth and evasion. Part of her was hoping that she may be able to learn a thing or two from the boy in that regard. She knew very well she wasn't the most subtle of ninja in their ranks, so any little bit could help.

Add to that the fact that she knew she would absolutely LOVE torturing the little brat until either his dick fell off, or his balls dropped, one of the two.

After another tense moment Sarutobi smiled and gave a slow nod. "Alright, with your recommendation I'll put the request through.' Almost at once the pair cheered, 'HOWEVER!' They paused almost in mid leap, 'I want detailed reports from you _both_ on your progress. Naruto, you will be her judge as much as she will be yours. I want you both to do your best now, understand? Anko, if this test goes well, and Naruto reaches a proper level in a timely manner, then I will consider this to be your jonin test as well." If anything her face lit up even more, looking at each of the people in the room with a smile that would probably last for days, "Make me proud Anko, Naruto, listen to everything she says, she's one of the very best in her field, and I know you will learn a lot. Anko, you know as well as anyone what Naruto can do with traps and stealth, I'm expecting this to be a two way street. As my sensei's would say, we never stop learning, be it from our friends, our foes, or our students. Good luck."

All three seemed to swell slightly at the old man's words, Ibiki absently wondering if he shouldn't lend a hand in the training as well, even he had been shocked to see what Naruto could do with little more than a smoke bomb, a dye packet and a rubber band.

He was sure for a long time that the Hyuga elders would never get that blue out of their skin.

The three gave a the Hokage a deep bow before dashing out of the office, Sarutobi fought the urge to laugh as he gave a slow three count aloud before Naruto ran back in, "Um…I kinda forgot my key…"

* * *

As the odd trio moved through the streets of the village they couldn't help but notice the crowd that would turn and watch, the Demon Child, the Snake Whore, and the Devil of T&I.

It was unsettling for most, though on some level they were hoping that the later two would be heading off to deal with the former. However, the grins that they all wore would hint that something else was happening.

Slowly the crowds began to thin as the stores dwindled into the 'slums' of the city. Warehouses, run down apartments and red-light sectors.

It was surprisingly close to Naruto's old home.

These places were usually found on the outskirts of the city, being a ninja village it was more likely than not that these sectors would be the first to be attacked should the outer walls fell, were the most likely to be sacrificed should sections of the city have to be declared as 'lost' and you had to deal with scorched earth. However, the direction that the three were moving were not towards the main sectors of the wall, but instead moved towards the forested area that wreathed part of The Forest of Death. These areas were almost always abandoned due to the odd creature that would be coming out of the forest searching for easier prey.

As they neared their destination Naruto was watching the darkened forests with more than a bit of paranoia, as the elation of the moment had worn off he had been starkly reminded of the fact that the two little girls had never been found, that the body of that would-be assassin had vanished, not to mention the bodies of two chunin.

Finally having enough of the boy jumping at his own shadows Anko snatched the blond up by the neck and gave him a noogie, "Her brat! What the hell's the matter with you? Your twitchier than Tora with her master on her heels."

Unheard by the trio a pair of hisses sounded from the treetops at the purple haired woman's antics.

"N-Nothing Anko-chan…it's just…"

"HEY! What did you call me!"

"A-Anko-chan?"

This time she outright smacked him in the back of the head, "That's Anko-sensei to you!"

He rubbed the growing knot on his head for a moment before mumbling an apology, "Sorry…I just only ever really called Iruka-sensei…well, sensei…he's the only one that has taught me anything."

Anko looked at the teen in confusion for a moment but before she could question him she felt a hand on her shoulder courtesy of Ibiki, "Anko, you have to understand, due to his condition he has had a harder time than you can imagine with this village. We've dealt with enough of those fools that you should know that his schooling wouldn't be any different."

The snake mistress seemed to deflate slightly at that, maybe she had more work in store for her than she thought. Deciding to shift gears back to her first thoughts, "Well why are you so jumpy?"

He took a cautious glance to Ibiki who nodded, "W-Well, did you hear about my…little problem?"

"You mean the fox? Of course."

He gave a cautious shake of his head, "No…this one is…a bit more recent…"

"Well? Spit it out!"

Deciding it may be a bit easier to show her Naruto curled his index finger and pressed it against his thumb, making a shallow cut along the pad. Anko simply chuckled at that, "So you filed your nails to a point, I don't see the-" She was cut off by Naruto drawing a beaten and warped kunai and smearing his blood down the spin of the diamond shaped blade, almost at once the pitted steel began to smolder and to her shock the blood ate clean through the metal in a few seconds before Naruto dropped the ruined hilt to the ground. "W…What the _fuck_ kid!"

"Anko, Naruto unsealed something the night of the scroll incident, the creature ended up saving his life when Mizuki attacked him. It seems that later on another such animal attacked Naruto while he slept. He was in a coma for two weeks because of it, currently there is something inside him that this creature left behind, it's linking into his systems and altering them. The nails, his bones, his blood, hell, right now he may be able to take a bite out of that kunai he just melted and digest it just fine."

"I-Is he OK?"

Naruto growled slightly, he didn't like being talked about like he wasn't there, "Yes, HE is. He's just trying to get used to the idea of having a monster that can destroy _planets_ sleeping in his chest, waiting to punch its way out!" Before the two could say anything else Naruto dashed away from the duo, Anko's hand extended to catch him only to be stopped by Ibiki, at her questioning look he just shook his head.

"Anko, give him a bit…in less than a month his world was turned upside down, and if what I heard is true then last night he found out another of these…monsters of his are running loose. Whatever these creatures are…their breeding…and damned fast, and from what he has managed to tell us from his nightmares…this is extremely slow for them…it's like their waiting for something. We will keep an eye on him, but for now he just needs time to think."

She looked more than a little worried at the idea of some kind of a monster running about, she hadn't heard much about this beyond Mizuki's death, "Ibiki, do you have any of the files on this? If I'm going to be his sensei I'm going to need to know everything about him, but do one thing for me…' He looked down at her with an arched brow, 'Don't let me forget and try and lick up some of his blood…"

The scared jonin let out a peal of laughter as they picked up the pace to their respective homes, it had been a long day, and tomorrow promised to be the beginning of hell for everyone involved.

If Anko had anything to say about it at least.

* * *

Naruto stared blankly up at the house he had just been issued, more than a little surprised at the two story structure. From what he could see the paint was a bit worn, and the roof needed a few new tiles, but as it stood it was hands down _infinitely _better than his old apartment. Already he was wondering what all he could do with the lawn alone as he moved up to the door and tested the lock and grinned as it didn't give. Sliding the key into the lock he took a deep breath, "Finally, things are looking up."

Even as he said it, he _knew_ it was a mistake.

The door opened easily as Naruto moved in and locked the door behind him, inside there was a thin layer of dust covering everything, he saw several large dust-rags and sheets covering several pieces of furniture, ad he moved in he took a deep breath of stale air and pulled the sheet carefully off of what looked to be a couch, his eyes instantly watering at the dust that filled the room. There before him was what at one time would have been a very stylish couch.

Ten years ago.

But to Naruto, who had dragged _pieces_ of found sofas back home and nailed them together this may as well have been a five star resort. With a whoop of joy he leapt onto the cushions and buried his face in the somewhat musky furniture and practically purred in joy. After several long moments he cracked an eye and spotted what looked to be a lounging chair as well as another small couch, with a maniacal grin on his face he dashed at top speed to the recliner and let out a scream of pain.

Interesting way to find out you have a coffee table…

Cradling what _had _to be a shattered shin he took a moment to rub the damaged limb before he limped over to the window and threw open them open, moving through the room and the house to open the others, hoping to get a breeze going to blow out some of the dust. As he started heading back to the front of the house he spotted the stairs leading up and grinned once more. All in all he had found four bedrooms, one of which was much larger than the others which had an bathroom attached. On the main level was a rather modern bath, the kitchen with appliances he had never even seen before. In one room looked to be part of a study, another door lead to a root cellar, then a small dining room and the living room finished off the house.

It was more room then he would ever need.

Naruto, after finishing his task moved up to the second floor again and with an agile leap and a quick hand snagged the roof and pulled himself up top where he settled on the forward most peak of odd roof. He had seen pictures of houses like this before, mostly in Ame, some in Kiri, even a few here, but never would he have thought that he would see this many of them so close together, why, if there was a wall around it he would have thought them part of a compound like the Hyuga had. Where it stood, as the light was beginning to fade, casting glowing rays through the trees, he could only see two other houses with lights on, both only a few doors down from him. For some reason this put him a bit more at ease, knowing that the only people on what had to be an entire city block were friendly to him, and would be his teachers in the coming months, if not years.

With a content sigh He moved back to the edge and swung into the house once more, however, as he landed in the bedroom he winced as his hand landed in something.

"Ugh…what the hell is this?" He brought the hand closer to his face and winced at the slimy, sticky material, it reminded him of some of the stuff that he had once used to gum up the ANBU armor. Wiping the goo on his already tattered jacket he shut the window and moved back into the house, quickly closing up all the windows once more after only a few hours of leaving them open before flipping on the kitchen lights and heating up one of his cups of noodles.

As the boiling water worked its magic Naruto settled into one of the chairs that lined a small bar that let those in the kitchen still interact with those in the living room and unfurled his scroll once more, studying its nuances again before the knowledge faded with everything he had experienced that day. Just as he was certain that the noodles were ready Naruto stiffened and looked up.

He could have sworn he heard footsteps.

His hunger forgotten for the moment Naruto took out his best kunai from the meager little pack and moved silently next to the wall that would lead down the stairs.

He was no fool, there was nothing worth stealing here now that hadn't been here for the last ten years, whoever was here, whatever they wanted, it had something to do with him.

Taking a moment to still his breath he let his other senses take over. Hearing, there was still the odd thumping, getting closer to the stairs. Smell, something with an oddly metallic sent to it. Touch, the cool of the steel handle and the odd vibrations from the floor above.

Naruto's blade came back as he readied the strike, determined not to be caught unaware.

And promptly had the knife snatched from his hand, even as another hand come around his midsections and pulled him taunt against a body, a very female body.

His voice was locked away in his throat, his body taunt in shock as he tried to understand what exactly it was that was happening now. He had never been embraced like this by a woman before, and some part of him was noticing that she was somewhere around his age, perhaps a bit older, as he was now a good bit taller than he had once been. As her lips seemed to loom closer him his nose was filled with that same scent, something coppery and something that he just now pieced together.

Rot.

As she leaned in closer to him he felt her inhale deeply, a slight murmur on her lips even as she shuddered slightly before letting out the breath through clenched teeth, making a sharp hiss that almost made the blond pass out.

Then he felt it, that same odd whisper across his mind, a lover's caress that seemed to taunt as it enticed.

He could see a flash of an image, a young blond teen that was being cuddled against, then the same teen shielding the person with his body before he passed out on top of, what he just understood to be, the purple haired girl.

Even as he seemed to come to that realization the person in question pulled him that much closer, the dull sound of steel rebounding off of the hardwood floors of the home echoing through the dim hallway even as he felt a third appendage curl around his midsection.

"Hmmm…Naruto…"

The voice was strange, a breathy, almost rasping sound that was most definitely human, but a voice that seemed to have never been used, as though it was as dusty and moth ridden as the drapes of the new home.

With a tremble he couldn't control racing through his body he turned to look upon the woman who was currently embracing him and had to fight off a blush, even with his added height, something that put him just below even with Anko, he was surprised to see she was a few inches taller than him. Turning his head slightly he saw her gazing down at him with a small smile on her lips.

Finely sculpted, almost perfectly angular face, snow white skin that was broken by the odd black outfit that seemed to cover sections of her body, the parts that seemed flush with him in particular were hard, like a plate of armor. Finally his eyes met hers and he couldn't stop the slight whimper that echoed down the hall.

Deep, blood red eyes stared into the endless blue orbs as her smile grew.

"Naruto."

His fear only grew as she leaned in again; bring her cheek flush to his for a moment before she leaned in closer, nuzzling up against him as her grip tightened.

"W-What are you?" she pulled back slightly to look at him in confusion. Seeming to brush that aside she brought up a hand to ghost over his cheek.

"Naruto."

"Y-Yes…that's my name…who are you?"

"Naruto!"

Letting out a sigh he pulled back from her slightly, taking her hand in his only to find her running her thumb over the backs of his knuckles, making the hairs on his arm stand tall. Using his free hand he put a hand to his chest, "I'm Naruto,' He then put it on her's, 'Your…." She just cocked her head once more before smiling and squeezing his hand. Seeming to understand he gave her a small smile, the idea running it's course as he repeated the motion, "I'm Naruto, your Murasaki?"

The girl cocked her head once more, "Mur….Mura…"

"Come on, you can do it!"

"Muraki."

"Close…Mura-saki."

"Murasaki?"

Naruto grinned as he squeezed her hand, "Right."

She seemed to light up at that, somehow he could feel her own joy echoing through his mind, "Murasaki!"

He nodded, "Yes, good."

"Murasaki?" To his confusion she looked up behind him, making a cold chill run up his spine again, there were two…

Turning, still locked in her grasp, he spotted the blue haired one again, both her and the newly minted Murasaki sporting longer hair than before, however, he was a bit surprised to see that she was a head shorter than the purple haired one, and now that he got a good look he could tell there were other differences, Murasaki seemed to possess an odd crest of sorts at the crown of her head, a larger blade on her tail than the blue. The newcomer seemed to have a more neutral, almost stoic look on her face, like the kind Shino had when he had swiped his glasses one day. A part of him also noticed that she seemed to have a bit better muscle tone, as though she could wade into a fight with the best of them and come out on top. Though he had no illusions that she would lose if she were to fight Murasaki.

To his surprise the giant released him, partially, and ran up to the foot of the stairs, almost looking like an excited little girl, bouncing from foot to foot as she pointed back to him, still holding him securely with her tail. "Naruto!" She then pointed to herself, "Murasaki!" She then pointed to the blue haired girl, one who seemed to be smiling gently at the pair, then looked back at Naruto expectantly. "Naruto?"

He studied the girl for a moment, noting her curious, yet expectant look before looking back to her hair and grinning, "Sorairo." The two looked at one another before smiling.

"Murasaki!"

"Sorairo!"

Then the pair looked at him with positively glowing faces before saying in unison, "Naruto!"

He returned the smile with a massive grin of his own.

And never saw their tails coming from behind to knock him out.

* * *

Translation note, if google is to be believed

Murasaki - Purple

Sarairo - Sky Blue

Hey, not all of us are Shakespeare, and I can see Naruto naming them like that in a state of mild panic.


	4. Chapter 4: Growth

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Aliens, never will.

AN: Sorry this one took so long folks, seems like every time I sat down to work on it I would have another story jump into my head or got distracted by the folk around me. I'll try and stick to my schedual closer, though with the holidays that may be a bit more strained. Though I will say I have a road trip coming up here for Thanksgiving, so that will afford me some time to write, if I don't get carsick that is :P

I'm probably going to try and update my Goddess fic next, been iching to try another chapter of that one ^_^ Anyway, here's light, hope it's decent :P

* * *

Light's Last Gasp

Chapter 4: Growth

* * *

"It's no good! NO GOOD!"

"Bu-"

"NO BUTS!" The resounding crack of knuckles on bone echoed through the forest clearing.

Naruto staggered back cradling his left arm, the indentions of the knuckles already darkening the flesh to a sickening green, but even as he watched it seemed to start to fade.

Anko blew gently on her hand, sending him a mocking grin, "You're far to slow brat, I thought you could lead ANBU on a merry chase, but all I'm seeing from you is a pathetic academy brat. Step up, or I'm going home."

The teen scowled at the purple haired joinin, "Then what do you want me to do! You're just beating the shit out of me! Train me to get faster before you complain!"

That gave Anko pause, he kinda had a point, "Why don't you just do what you do with ANBU!"

"I _wasn't fighting them_, I was _running!_"

She growled as she advanced on the boy, "Then USE IT!"

"HOW!"

Her hands flew up in annoyance, "Make me chase you! Try and get me somewhere where I can't move! Trick me into trashing a store and get me in trouble! Were ninja! _You don't have to play fair!_"

"B-"

"**DON'T!**"

"Bu-"

"What did I say!"

"No Buts…"

"So you do have a brain in there…" Her smile widened at his scowl. "Now then, I guess we're going to have to work on your body a bit more before I can _really_ start working you over…"

Naruto felt a cold sweat break out all over his body, this wasn't going to end well…

Three hours later found Naruto seriously wishing that the thing in his chest had just killed him. Currently he was in a deep horse stance, something he hadn't done before. It was basic enough, feet shoulder width apart, knees bent as close as you could get to ninety degrees without falling.

That wasn't the problem, it was the myriad of other…items that Anko had tied to his body or propped on or around him that was making him long for the sweet embrace of death. In each hand, gripped by the tops were heavy jars filled with water, his fingers long numb to the pains of the weight as he struggled to keep them up and outstretched from his body.

Why away? Why not just hold them close and try and rest his weary muscles a bit? Well that was simple enough; under each of his armpits she had tied a set of small hooked blades, so that if he brought his arms down or even closer to himself then he would be in for a nasty bit of pain.

At the top of his head, his knees, and the backs of his hands she had set several cups full of hot tea, something she would idly pull from him to drink as she snacked on her dango in a tree, and if he dared let one of her good cups fall and shatter she had promised that he would be meeting the boss of her summons.

Lastly, as an incentive to keep from falling back she had situated a long, slow burning sick pointed up at his ass, should he fall, it would be a flaming version of a technique she had called 'the thousand years of death'.

At first, he had refused all this.

At first, he ran to Ibiki's home to try and find help.

All that earned him was a set of ten pound weights that now hung from his elbows.

He wanted a hug….

"Alright brat, your done! DON'T DROP THEM!" He froze, his middle fingers had already released the jars, "Keeping that stance take two, slow steps forward, and don't spill a drop! If you can do this then we'll work on your taijutsu. If you fail, it's back to strength training!"

"H-How am I supposed to put them down?" He grunted through grit teeth.

"There is a stump a bit to your right. Like I said, it should be two strides. Not shuffles, not steps, _strides_. I want each stride to be almost the full width of your current stance. Your lower body is the foundation of the tower. Without a good foundation the tower crumbles."

"WHAT FREAKING TOWER!"

She let out an annoyed sigh as she scrubbed a hand trough her hair, "It's a metaphor brat. If your legs and abdomen are not strong enough then it doesn't matter how good your techniques are, how good your taijutsu is, you will _fail_. As much as I may hate my _sensei_ he was a genius. I'm teaching you what he taught me."

He hadn't missed the venom in her voice, despite all his pain. "If you hate your _sensei_ so much then why are you teaching me what he taught you?"

One step, slow and agonizing, his limbs having a thousand pinpricks running through them as he got hairline scratches from the blades. "Like I said kid, he was a genius. As much as I hate him, and believe me, I _do_ hate him, he taught me what it really means to be a ninja, just like I'm teaching you."

Another stride, and he was before the stump, though it looked like Anko had overestimated the boy's size. He let out a mild whimper at the fact he was still half a stride away. Unseen by the duo, just off the tree line, two sets of red eyes flashed as soft hissing drove the creatures of the forest away sickle like tails flicking now and again, taking the odd branch with them as they moved ever closer to the blond.

With limbs screaming in pain he took his next step and with a roar of pain and frustration placed the first jug down, the sharp prick of a blade reminding him he can't lower his arm just yet. Another half step and the next jug was down, and it was taking all of his strength not to just drop to the ground right there.

"_Hold it!_ Easy, take deep breaths, I know that right about now everything about you is screaming just to drop and sleep for a week. You're not going to do that."

Panting horribly he turned almost evil eyes to his teacher, "And…why…is that?"

A soft smile graced her lips, one that set his cheeks aflame, "Because your stronger than that." His eyes widened as, before his eyes, she was simply gone, then he felt the weight of the cups vanish even as the blades fell away. "You're going to be _good_ one day gaki, trust me on that.

"H-How do you know?"

"Because I never completed that exercise…"

Three sets of eyes widened that day, two of them shocked at the feeling coursing through them even as the third felt himself filled with pride. Praise was something the teen was unused to but he knew well enough that he was going to try his hardest to feel again and again.

"Ok brat. You're done for the day. Get your crap, get cleaned up, and get home. Well be starting the real work tomorrow, and if you're lucky, missions.

If e had the energy, he would have leapt into the air with a whoop of joy, as it was, he was forced to use his chin to try and crawl back to his small pile of weapons, and the ten pound weights. "Y-You promise…Anko-sensei?"

"Teh, I never make promises, if you work hard then we'll do a mission, but it's all up to you."

Turning his head to the side he gave her a face splitting grin, his face marred by filth, "Then no worries sensei, I'm not going to stop until were doing missions that even you have to work at!"

It started as a dull chuckle, then grew until she laughing long and loud into the fading light of the day. "Oh, kid, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into…"

"That's why I have you…"

The whisper could only just be heard. Drawing her eyes to look down at the boy struggling to get back to his feet she couldn't help but see herself there, clawing her way back up after being driven so far down, "W-What?"

He only grinned, "That's why I have you sensei!"

"Gaki…"

"Oh come on…stop calling me that! I have a good name, use it!"

Another peal of laughter, "Kid you're too much!"

He dropped into a pout, "Well they like my name…"

"Heh, who brat, your little girlfriends? Gaki got a fan-club?"

She was a bit shocked to see him rise to his feet and quickly start to gather his weapons, "N-Never mind sensei, I'll see you tomorrow!"

Before she could so much as open her mouth the boy was gone, a little orange blur off in the distance. "Well…must be one hell of a date…"

* * *

"I'm home!"

A thousand times he had done it, made the cry he'd heard the others in the village make.

A thousand times he was met with silence, doing it more for habit, a part of him hoping that one day he may get an answer, that Kami may have surprised him with his mother or father showing up suddenly and just being there.

The definition of insanity is repeating a process over and over, yet expecting a different outcome. But I, dear readers, say that if you stop trying, how will things ever change? How can you be certain that, this one time, won't be different?

For Naruto Uzumaki, this thousand and first time, would prove to be return to sanity, after a fashion.

Twin voices cried out, one slightly monotone, one closer to deep, almost sultry, if it weren't for the cries they were unleashing. Two blurs, one purple, one blue streaked from deeper in the house to tackle the blond to the ground. "Naruto!"

With a rasping gasp the young teen looked down at the two heads of long hair that were currently nuzzling his chest, "H-hey girls, did you have a nice day?"

Two sets of red eyes turned up to him, smiles adorning their faces as a sudden cascade of images came through his mind. Rising early and dashing into the forest to find breakfast, returning to find him gone and the scent of another women in their home. Their subsequent hunt and watching him train himself into the dirt before following him back, and coming from the other side of the house.

He returned the favor, showing them the memories from his point of view, earning him pained groans from the two women, apparently even to 'monsters' Anko's training was above and beyond what they had expected.

The purpose for Murasaki and Sarairo constantly knocking him out had been simple enough to understand once they had gotten 'caught up' as it were, on the memories. Apparently, at least to Murasaki, the collective memories of her race were less important than those she was currently picking up, quick to get to the point where she had been birthed from the egg, dealing with Mizuki, many of his own memories that had been gleaned from his blood, memories that were going to prove vital to the village once he was finally able to relay them to the Hokage.

Once he figured out how to broach the subject that is, he could hardly walk into the man's office and just blurt out that he was sharing memories with monsters and oh, by the way, they got memories of a traitor before he died.

He'd be locked up faster than he could eat ramen.

The memory transfer hadn't just been one way either it seemed, as he noticed the duo clinging to walls and leaping through the trees using chakra, apparently pulled from Mizuki's memories, making rudimentary hand signs when he had tried to practice the water clone that morning, all in all, it was a shocking thing to see at first, still, he hadn't been able to help them with their language problems as of yet, forcing him to try and interpret things based on the memory flashes and emotions that were being relayed through to him.

Not the easiest of things, though they had taken to showing him flashes of his beloved ramen when they were hungry, images of those who had been cruel to him when they were mad, and, oddly enough, images of himself when they were happy. One thing was certain to him, he would have to get a book on teaching others to read and speak soon, if he was going to have any luck whatsoever in helping them out properly. Still, the fact that they were friendly, and thus far unthreatening to him had been a major plus, add to that they had been shockingly affectionate and protective of him, flashing images of a bug he hadn't seen much of in the flashes, it was large, like the other queens, but looked a bit more…spindly…and they had a different coloration, a deep, almost blood red whereas the queens would run the gambit, though were quite often blacks and blues.

He still didn't understand the significance of the reds, but every time they flashed that image it seemed that they would become that much more affectionate, trying to drag him to different areas so that they may cuddle. Though it seemed at those times that Murasaki was always that much more…aggressive. Though he would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy it, there was something…comforting, about having her close like that.

As he managed to pry himself out from under the duo he was suddenly hit with several quick flashes, and the emotions accompanying them. First was another image of the reds, and an image of his couch, next was the image of ramen, and the picture of a rather large tiger that they had taken down from in the forest. With a chuckle he took the two girls over to the couch and sat them down before dodging their grabs with a laugh before he ran for the kitchen.

Only to have his shoulders drop in defeat at what he was seeing, a bloody, eviscerated tiger tossed almost carelessly in the middle of the kitchen floor. It was clear from the marks on the body that the two now trailing him had already fed on it, those most of the musculature was still intact. With an annoyed sigh he let the image of the tiger being out in the yard, doing his best to relay his annoyance at the situation.

The two had the decency to look a bit sheepish, yet at the same time they didn't seem to understand, sending images of the hives they had known from their memories.

He really needed to get a book to teach these girls…something faster than just the image of a single item and telling them the word, it helped for some things, but not how to properly speak.

With a sigh he grabbed the tiger by its massive paws, if he was going to make use of this thing then he needed to get it skinned and prepped properly, hell, if he was lucky he could sell the pelt to someone in the market and make a nice bit of extra money.

He had managed to pull it about half way out the door when the others came to lend their hands, helping to muscle where he could start his carving when it happened.

A tired hand slipped.

It pressed the pad of the great paw just so, letting a long claw come forth, to then bite his arm deeply.

A hiss of pain and at once Murasaki was at his said, pulling his hand close to her as she sniffed at the wound, a flash of memories from the night before and Sarairo was off, making a mad dash though the house to get the pictured bag of medical supplies.

Murasaki, in the meantime, acted on instinct.

With an almost loving gentleness she let an abnormally long tongue lash out, quickly lapping at the wound.

It proved her undoing

At first Naruto had been terrified at what could happen, after all, his blood could melt solid steel.

At first, he had thought she let out a roar of pain and tear him to shreds.

He never expected the glazed look that overcame her, nor the almost full body flush or shuddering moan.

In an instant his mind was overwhelmed by images of the reds once more, slowly she seemed to just fall away, curling into a ball on the grass coated earth. Before he could really clear his mind once more, to try and ask, or at least understand what was going on he was bombarded once more, this time of images of the hive.

And his root cellar.

At that time Sarairo had returned, almost throwing the bandages in his face before taking Murasaki in her arms and carrying her away, making a bee line for the least used room, thus far, in his home.

When he had first found it in his exploration the previous day he had been surprised to find the door was inside the house, having seen other homes around the village with such places, but they always had outside entrances, he was rather certain that he had such a place as well, but considering how little time he had to really look he was content with the inside door.

Apparently, this dark, dank little place was going to become rather pivotal for what Murasaki had planned. Still, he couldn't help but be worried, and was quick to follow the duo, absently wrapping his arm as he went.

When he reached the rather large, open area that dominated the center of the cellar he froze.

There, seeming to struggle to push, was Murasaki.

From her tail were several large lumps, traveling down the length slowly, Sarairo watching almost nervously form her side as they moved further down her lengthy tail.

Naruto's eyes widened, as the long blade of her tail suddenly _split_ open into three, and from there a much smaller looking egg appeared.

He paled.

His body began to shake uncontrollably.

Murasaki smiled, and the last thing he saw before passing out once more was the mental image of the reds again, followed by a picture of himself smiling.

* * *

The gentle light of the dawn was something that was largely lost on the elderly man that had been sitting at his desk most of the night.

The culprit was a simple one, yet one that he knew he could never truly slay.

Paperwork.

Work that, in this instance, is largely because of his surrogate grandchild, Naruto.

He let out an annoyed sigh as he rubbed his balding head with an aching hand. It had all started innocently enough. The boy needed a new place to stay. Now it had come down to ensuring that those that had initially threatened his home were found and dealt with, something that had a good deal of parchment crossing his desk over the last few days, especially with numerous requests for missions to look for missing pets.

It was almost as though Tora had been organizing the other animals.

But that was silly…

As he was about to pull the next scroll from the pile a knock came from his door.

"Enter." Slowly, almost hesitantly, one of the chunin from the missions desk entered.

"Hokage-sama, genin teams seven and nine have reported back, mission failed, there is still no sign of Tora, team ten is still out in the field in their attempt."

The aged leader let out a tired sigh as he shook out his writing hand, attempting to banish the dull ache that had built up over the long night. "I see…has Mitarashi-san reported for any missions yet?"

"No Sir."

A nod, "Keep me apprised, if I know her then she may just train a few more days before they opt in.' He let out a chuckle, 'Then again, knowing Naruto, he'll probably badger her into your office soon."

The chunin couldn't help but laugh as well, he had been one of the few that had always liked the boy, usually watching the numerous teams come in to get missions to clean up after one of Naruto's many pranks.

Hey, say what you will about the kid, he brought in money for the village.

As the man was turning to leave the muffled sounds of a scuffle came from the outside the office before the door was kicked open, revealing the panting form of one Anko Mitarashi, "Hokage-sama! It's Naruto…"

For said boy, he was left with no further options in his mind, he had to go to the Hokage. Murasaki had successfully laid all five eggs, and already they were growing, she and Sarairo had refused to leave them, having curled up around them as though they were true eggs, still, when he had awoken he had found himself in the same position.

An odd drain of chakra trickling from all three of them into the eggs, feeding them and letting them grow much larger than they initially were, more in line with the one he had unsealed from the scroll.

When he had finally managed to rouse the two they had seemed ecstatic, already flashing images of a growing hive, something filled with death…yet at the same time new life. He couldn't really fault them, and tried to give them a gentle smile, but still…

He and Sarairo, she acting under orders and he compelled to help in some way, moved to the tiger and brought several large chunks of it back down to the basement, she tore into the meat with a vengeance, you would think she hadn't eaten in a week. When she had her fill he knew what he had to do.

"Murasaki…would you like to go visit a friend of mine?"

She cocked her head at the blond, "Naruto?"

Concentrating he tried to send a proper series of images, the two of them walking, going to the tower and meeting the old man that lived at the top. Well, that's the gist he was able to convey at least. Her look of confusion turned to a radiant smile, and before he could blink he was bombarded with images, the kaleidoscope of thoughts causing his head to throb painfully, but still, he understood, Sarairo was to stay here and guard, yet watch, while they left, though he also noticed several other images that had come and gone so fast that he couldn't make them out.

Before he really recovered Murasaki had already dragged him up the stairs and was half way out the door when he managed to dig his heels in and stop them, sending her a strong image of Anko looking for him. Pulling her back inside he was quick to write a note and slap it on the door before pulling down one of the drapes and tossing it around her shoulders, making sure to pull it over her head as a makeshift cloak.

He was glad that his sensei had, apparently, decided against dragging him out of bed before dawn today, or maybe it was that she had already looked and couldn't find him…still, he had a bad feeling he'd be seeing her sooner rather than later…

As the two began to get closer and closer to the village proper he felt Murasaki pull closer to him, almost clinging as she keep sharp eyes on those around them, a cascade of his own memories entering his mind, a one of the Hyuuga who would keep him from the park whenever Hinata was there playing, one of the Inuzuka who would sick their dogs on him, one of the old orphanage caretakers that would refuse him food, all memories that had been old and people half forgotten were fresh, glaring wounds to his new family.

That gave him pause, family?

Unbidden the image flashed through his mind into the link, the two almost instantly sending back images of his new home, pictures of hives, and the three of them all burled up on his bed. It seemed like they agreed…and it caused his heart to warm.

So consumed in his thoughts he never really noticed the fact that Murasaki had drifted away a bit, at least until he started getting odd images, mostly of fish and other things.

'_Shit! The market!'_

"Welcome pretty lady! This is Shiro's Market, you won't find better prices for the finest fish in the village! Come! Have a look at this trout! Fresh from river country just this day, I know what you're thinking, how can it be fresh? Well that's easy! My exclusive contractors employ a number of retired ninja, all proficient in snow jutsu, letting them pack and keep the finest products chilled all the way here! Now then, what can I get for yo-"

"No thank you sir! We're not interested right now!"

The rather portly, balding man gave Naruto a dirty look as he quickly dragged Murasaki away, the girl resisting slightly as sharp eyes darted from stall to stall, quickly trying to take in all the sights, nostrils flaring at every new smell. Suddenly he had a feel that he knew what the old man went through when he had to be lead around when he was little.

"Weapons here! Finest blades in the village!"

"Jewels, gold, silver, you've never seen anything more beautiful! Straight from Snow!"

"Fresh vegetables!"

"Hand crafted to-"

Despite her curiosity, as the crowd grew Murasaki drew closer. As they got louder the images seemed to grow fewer, and those that he did get were all laced with images of her kind being destroyed.

Naruto did his best to sent reassuring feeling back, holding her closer and making sure that he kept some of his happier memories coming. Still, he increased his pace towards the tower, quickly passing the academy and dodging past more stalls.

"HEY You! Brat! Get back here!" If anything, Naruto moved faster, almost dragging Murasaki at this point when a hand caught the back of his jacket. "I'm _talking_ to you, you little shit!"

Turning he was quick to put himself between this man and Murasaki, It took Naruto a moment to understand just who this was, it was the general store owner from across his old apartment building. "What do you want? I haven't been to your shop in weeks."

The man sneered, the thick, graying beard smelling sharply of old, sour sake, "That's the problem! You left a hefty tab at my store, and you're going to pay, in full."

That actually caught him by surprise, "Are you serious? You've never let me get anything on credit before! I don't owe you anything!"

The man's sneer grew into a grin laced with malice, "See, my ledger says otherwise, and with that filed in the clerk's office, I'll have a hefty sum coming my way…though…maybe your friend there could give an ad-"

A flurry of movement.

A piercing cry.

And unearthly hiss.

Naruto could only gape at the scene before him, the glittering jewels of red that filled the air, and the faint weight on his jacket of the man's lingering hand.

Too bad the arm was a good two feet away.

"Shit! Murasaki, what'd you do!" He got the image of the man before him striking him with brooms, bottles, anything he had on hand, and the handful of times he was allowed to buy things from the shop, always badly spoiled or damaged. "Come on! We have to go!"

Without sparing the man a second glance Naruto grabbed the larger woman around the midsection and took off at full speed, shunting chakra to his arms and legs to help him move faster, right now, he had to reach the tower, there just wasn't time for anything else.

Though he did learn that she could laugh.

* * *

"Anko-chan, your telling me that he was just gone when you went to look for him this morning?"

"And there was this huge dead tiger half way in his back door, looked like the thing had been torn apart and _eaten_! The weirdest thing was there was a note from him on the front door, said he was coming to see you!"

"And seeing as he isn-"

A flurry of steps from outside the office broke the duo from their train of thought just before the secretary gave an indignant squawk as Sarutobi found his door kicked open, revealing a panting blond with a purple haired woman tucked under one shoulder, though it was strange that he seemed to be carrying her so easily, seeing as she looked to be well over a head taller, besting Anko by several inches.

"Old man, I gotta talk to y-Eh…H-Hello Anko-sensei…fancy seeing you here…"

"Gaki, you have a lot of explaining to do…" The cracking of knuckles filled the air as she advanced on the blond, only to have the purple haired woman step in the way, a menacing scowl on her face, the fierceness alone making her stop in mid step.

"M-Murasaki, it's alright, it's Anko-sensei!"

The girl glanced over her shoulder for the briefest of seconds before backing up to lean against him, "Ok brat, who's the girl? And why did it look like she was going to try and kill me!"

"Let's just say it has something to do with my recent changes, and until the old man and I can talk alone that's all your getting."

Anko's eyes became hard and filled with a fiery rage, "You want to say that again…"

"ENOUGH!" Three figures jumped, "Naruto, she's your sensei, if this is anything about your new…tenet, then she has a right to know. Now what about this woman?"

The two shared a quick glance, though the girl seemed a bit more…oblivious as to the situation, like she only understood that two people in the room were angry, "Fine, but we need to be alone for this…I…I don't want to cause a panic…"

The Hokage seemed to think for a long moment as he eyed both Naruto and the girl. "Fine…" A snap of his fingers and four puffs of smoke filled the corners of the room, "Squad, position yourselves around the office, no one gets in until I say so. Sweep for bugs and intruders at regular intervals." With a quick salute the four vanished, after a moment t let them get into position he snapped through ten quick hand signs before the room was filled with a dull glow. "Alright Naruto, this had better be good…"

The blond took a deep breath and let it with a huff, this was going to be a hard one to explain.


	5. Chapter 5: Revelations

Disclaimer: I dont own Naruto or Aliens, doubt I ever will.

AN: Once more, I must apologize for the lack of updates on my part. This time, it came with something of a revelation.

I'm addicted to stress. That's the way that I get things done, if I'm not under pressure then I sleep to long, and I hang around like a bum.

For those that know the rest of the song, feel free to have it stuck in your head. For those that don't, look it up, it's rather funny, and there is a good Cowboy Bebop AMV to it ^_^

Now, that actually has a correlation to me and my updates. For some of my long time readers they may recall that at a few times I've had to get armies ready while working and wanting to write. In a week, I had to have a force built and painted, had a job evaluation, and pressure to update.

I got four chapters down for my stories. The army built and primered, and a good evaluation before we found out he was planning on drumming up theft charges on all of us so he could hire new staff for less wages.

Now that I'm jobless, and dont have a lot of people to play against in Warhammer, the pressure is gone. So no real updates.

Until now. I have a pending job interview, and a contest I want to enter for a very spiffy poster for Warhammer. So guess what? ^_^

* * *

Light's Last Gasp

Chapter 5: Revelations

* * *

Two faces were slack-jawed.

One drawn into a thin line, wondering what would happen next.

The last's was in the shape of a large grin, not really understanding what was going on.

She was just happy to be included with people that were important to her mate.

The violet haired queen looked to Naruto, before looking to Bare Top and Sensei. She could feel a level of unease in the air with them, but really didn't think much of it, nothing was directed to her mate yet, only to her, something she was rather used to, she had seen it a hundred million times, across thousands of worlds, still, the odd thought of the food on the street that had attacked them came to mind, making her grit her teeth and pull closer to Naruto, something that caused the elder two in the room to stiffen even as she pulled his arm up around her waist before snuggling closer to him, almost unconsciously he pulled her closer as her eyes drifted close with a content murmur.

"L-Let me see if I get this straight brat..."

"Naruto."

"_Brat_, you...somehow, found yourself with this...thin-"

"Murasaki."

"Creature. It, and another protected you...you passed out...then the other day when you got your new house they had somehow followed you...but had grown like ten years overnight..."

"Kinda..."

"They...the very monsters you were shitting bricks about not a week ago...are now your room mates...and this one is somehow laying eggs!"

"In a nut shell...don't forget that she kinda cut off a hand earlier..."

The two elder ninja looked to one another before giving the blond a nervous smile, "N-Naruto-kun...why don't you come stand over here for a moment..."

Said teen looked to his grandfather-figure in confusion, drawing the violet haired girl closer to him and earning a coo from the content woman, the flash of more eggs and the reds echoing through his mind once more. "Why?"

"Just come here Naruto...I want to give you a jutsu I think you can use..." Sarutobi ran the pad of his thumb along one of the many blades he kept hidden on him, taking note of all the places that would be 'soft' on the woman...well what he could see..

Naruto only cocked his head, "Then give it to Anko-sensei, she said she'd teach me everything when the time was right!"

The teacher in question cursed, he had to remember that threat over all the others...not to learn what she didn't say he was ready for..."Come on brat, this is from the Hokage! He knows best after all."

That gave him pause, "Wait...you called him Hokage..."

She arched an eyebrow, "Ya?"

"You said you'd never call him that...What's going on..."

The older leader started to slowly made the signs for a clone, if he was slow, careful, then maybe he could get it made and substituted in time..."Now Naruto, were only worried ab-"

The blonds' eyes suddenly went cold as steel even as Murasaki stiffened, her cloak seeming to shift on its own, "About what? She and Sorairo-chan protected me even when your guards couldn't! They care about me! Murasaki-chan was the one that made sure I was okay when the thing was laid in my chest! They even get food for me in the forest while I'm training with Anko-sensei! They saved me from Mizuki-teme! Their...their even there when I get home..." The last came out in the barest of whispers that, in any other situation would have caused them to be lost in the wind, but not here, not now.

Sarutobi could only flinch, while he had been able to save Naruto for the largest parts of his physical pain, there was nothing he could really do for the emotional, these creatures may have been monsters to him initially, but now that he had learned of them properly, he seemed utterly comfortable, if not attracted, to the creature latched on his side. "N-Naruto, understand, from what you told us t-"

"No! These aren't the same things! Murasaki and Sorairo are smarter! They feel and they learn much faster! I just need help...teaching them to speak and read, if I can do that then we can teach them the laws and what's right and wrong! There won't be any more deaths to the villagers if they just leave us alone!"

"Naruto-kun you have t-"

"NO! I to-"

Finally the old man had had enough, his hands slamming into the table hard enough to send the stacks of paper jumping almost a foot in the air, "_Naruto!_" That shut him up, and had him putting himself between the old man and Murasaki, who was hissing angrily at the man, Anko herself had never seen the man snap like that, and had jumped higher than the paperwork if that were at all possible. The old man's eyes held an edge, though at the same time seemed to grow more gentle, "Naruto, understand where I'm coming from. These creatures have killed several civilians, two ninja and can with apparent ease kill the creatures in the forest of death! I know you are close to them, but for the sake of the village we have to stop them now before they spread!"

Naruto seemed to be quiet for a long moment, casting hesitant glances to Murasaki, he couldn't deny that the man had a point...that didn't mean he had to like it! "But they were protecting me and themselves...and just eating...no one goes into the forest...w-what if you just watched us? Made sure we were okay? That they wouldn't hurt anyone!"

Sarutobi watched the pair, idly wondering about such an option before his wondering eyes landed on Anko, "You've been awful quiet over there Anko-chan...what do you think?"

The woman suddenly flinched at feeling all the eyes go to her, the purple haired woman eyeing her cautiously, "M-Me?"

"Yes...you've been training Naruto-kun, have you noticed anything out of place with him since their apparent contact?" His eyes suddenly became all business, "Report, Mitarashi-san!"

The Jonin snapped quickly to attention, long years of slipping into 'report mode' making it a habit. "Sir! Genin Uzumaki has actually seemed to calm down significantly over the last week, at first being his brash and rude self, but as the week progressed he seemed to become more serious and quick to follow orders, although he will still question and devise strategies on the fly, I believe that he is shaping up to be a splendid ninja! Sir!"

The old man tried to hold back a chuckle, 'I still got it.' "So your saying that they have been a positive influence on him?"

"He came to tell you rather than trying to hide the fact."

That made him laugh, "True...but I can't let this go without monitoring..."

"U-Um...Jiji? Can't you just send someone by to check on us now and then?"

The elderly leader just shook his head, "Naruto, this isn't like making sure you are taking care of a puppy, or if you got over a cold. You yourself warned us of this threat, I need to monitor you and your...room mates...day and night. The only other options are imprisonment, or extermination."

Naruto flinched at the thought of it, a flash of the humans killing her kind flashed in his mind, making the girl, who had been latched onto his back, stiffen, "J-Jiji..."

"So...for now...I think I will simply need to monitor the situation...as you said, in the time that you have been living in the house there have been no deaths and no missing people. From that I can gather they had only attacked in self defense, however, you will need to be watched. Naruto, do these...women, listen to you?"

He looked a bit nervous at that, "Well...kinda...Murasaki-chan and Sorairo-chan seem to like me...though Sorairo-chan seems to listen to Murasaki-chan more than anything...but Murasaki-chan listens to me, so I think we'll be okay! She's the queen, they have to listen to her! And if she will listen to me th-"

"You'll be the king...interesting..." That set Naruto to blushing, an impish smile on his lips, a king eh? "Anko-chan...I think I may have a ne-"

"No."

The old man arched an eyebrow at her, seeing her arms crossed over her chest and looking away with a childish pout, "Anko..."

"You can't make me! I'm already training him! I dont want to just sit on my ass and watch the little monst-"

"_Anko!"_ That put her on edge, he had snapped twice in one day...a new record...the Third Hokage gave her a hard look before glancing meaningfully to Naruto, the boy having his head hidden a bit by his bangs as he flexed his fingers, the sharper than normal nails almost slicing flesh before he let them relax.

"Oh...Naruto...I didn't mean it th-"

The teen turned and placed an arm around he cloaked woman's shoulders even as she looked ready to pounce on Anko and rip her to shreds. A long, cruel looking bladed tail snaking out from under the cloak, making her eyes widen before she saw Naruto strengthen his grip before just shaking his head. "I-I'm going to head home now Hokage-sama. Don't worry, if people leave us alone, we'll leave them alone." Even as the door started to shut Sarutobi rounded on Anko, but before he could speak he heard Naruto's voice echo back through the room, "I'll see you tomorrow Anko-sensei, sorry for being late today."

Sarutobi slumped back in his chair even as Anko shot him nervous glances. "Anko-chan...you know...I see you as something of a daughter at times...not unlike Kushina...but there are times th-"

"H-Hokage-sama I really didn't mean to-I wasn't think-"

The man let out a sigh as he dropped back into the his chair, "That much is obvious Anko-chan...You know one of the reasons that I paired you together is that I was hoping that you would be able to help each other...everything you suffered at the hands of the villagers would have been a warm sunny day for Naruto."

"Y-Yes...I know..."

"Then why would you refer to someone who Naruto obviously cares about like that? We all knew what they were..."

The jonin threw her hands up with a huff, "Hey! You can't just turn on and off a personality! You know I give everyone nicknames, and I'm blunt at the best of times! I _torture_ things for a living for Kami's sake! You think I can just put on kit gloves just like that!" She snapped her fingers, making the man before her twitch.

"Honestly, yes, I do. You are one of my best, and as such you should be able to at least _act_ like an utterly different person when needed to. Even Kakashi can be energetic when it's called of him. So tell me, why is it so hard for you to try and understand a boy his age!"

That made her shrink back a bit even as she started to gnaw on a lip, when the old man had a point, he had a point. "Loo-I don-**damn it!** Look, it's because I was his age when...when..."

A look of understanding came over the elderly leader as he moved and collected the girl in warm arms, the jonin stiffening slightly before she seemed to deflate, it was so easy to forget how fragile Anko actually was deep down..."Anko-chan...I know...trust me when I say...I know. If I could go back and stop that man from doing all he had done...but I can't. However, you, Anko, can make sure that his teachings end up in the right hands. Naruto's...and yours. If there is one person I can trust with this, it's you."

Anko could only look into the man's eyes with unshed tears in her own, a steeliness coming into them as she began to process his words. He trusted her, and more than that, he trusted her _with Naruto_. "O-Okay...you can count on me...jiji..."

The man let out a small laugh, "Oh Kami...not you too..."

She smiled before pulling away, absently scrubbing at her eyes, "Hey...the kid had a good idea with that name...and you said we were supposed to teach each other..."

"I was hoping it wouldn't be that..."

Now her smile became a grin, "Hey, you can hope in one hand and shit in the other, we'll see which one fills up first! Now...I have to go pack, apparently I'm moving...hope the little brat doesn't snore..."

As she vanished in a swirl of leafs the village leader silently made a vow...up the decorum lessons for his kunoichi...

* * *

Naruto couldn't help but feel lost, the normally confident boy jumping at every shadow, part of him convinced that the old man was going to still send the ANBU after them, especially when he saw so many in the market making a wide berth for the duo. It seemed that the rumors were already spreading fast, he could only hope that the old man could do a little damage control before things got out of hand.

Yet again he felt his mind assailed with images, the visions of 'food', the glittering or shining things that were catching her eye, more and more people that had wronged him over the years, those he was so desperately trying to forgive in hopes of reaching acceptance.

Just as he was ready to make the turn towards the library he was suddenly pulled up short as his cloaked companion seemed to simply phase in front of him, his mind filled with images of pink and pain.

"Naruto? Is that you?"

The blond had to fight the urge to rush up to the pinkette, the almost constant stream of images from Murasaki were suddenly putting things in to stark contrast for him. "H-Hello Sakura-chan. How have you been?

If anything Murasaki pulled Naruto closer, making sure that while she was shielding him that the teen was close enough so that she could feel the heat of his body on her back. The duo taking note of the small twitch in the bubblegum haired girl's features at the affectionate address, then again perhaps it was due to the woman standing almost a foot and a half over her. Still, she put a wide smile on her face before answering, "I couldn't be better! I got on Sasuke-kun's team! Though there's this creepy kid with us named Sai, but he's got nothing on the Rookie of the Year!"

Naruto gave a small 'hn' at that bit of information, it wasn't surprising to hear that the raven haired teen had gotten the honor, the boy was the golden child of the academy afterall, almost absorbing all the jutsu, techniques and tactics that the academy had to offer. It was one of the things that had frustrated him to no end...he had never really been shown _how_ to learn effectively. No one to correct him, nothing. So when he was mocked for it it had always hurt.

And now he was going to have to _teach_?

It wasn't going to end well.

Still, it seemed these thoughts were not lost on his violet haired companion, and despite how much he wanted to talk with his crush he knew that the only chance he really had of keeping his new 'family' was to find a way to teach the two at least how to talk. "Um...heh...Sakura-chan?" The girl finally seemed to come out of her self induced fantasy, looking at him with slightly narrowed eyes, though still wary of the girl between the two. "I'm really happy that you got on the team you wanted, but I really have to go, I've got to find a book before tomorrow, or my sensei might kill me..."

That caused the pinkette to quirk a brow, "Sensei?"

The boy nodded and pointed at his forehead, "Ya, I passed a makeup test, but got hurt so I missed team placements. So I got made an apprentice!"

The girl seemed to ignore the proud smile that he was wearing, only scowling slightly, "Wait, you get one on one training? But that's not fair!"

He cocked his head in confusion even as he felt Murasaki's tail brushing at his flank, tickling slightly, "Why? Even I'm learning a new clone technique, doesn't your sensei use clones to give you all one on one training? Anko-sensei said that's what they do on most teams."

That seemed to give the girl pause, so far the only thing that they had really done was minor team building and a few D-ranked missions, after that she and Sai and been sent home while Kakashi had taken Sasuke to get some dinner. She didn't think anything of it at the time, he was alone after all, but now... "R-Really? Ours doesn't do that...we just learn how to work together..."

Naruto felt a slight wave of panic at seeing the girl so down before he rapidly waved his hands, trying to stave off her impending depression, "W-Well ya! I mean you guys have to have a bunch of awesome abilities! I just have me! So of course you have to learn to use them right! Otherwise the teme could cook you while you're trying one of your super cool techniques Sakura-chan!"

An impish smile came over the pinkette as she soaked in the praise, no matter how much she may have hated the little blond she couldn't deny that he would always try and cheer her up. That thought gave her slight pause, she was just now noticing that he was almost half a head taller than her now, when had that happened? Shaking that off she took note of the much taller girl still giving her a dirty look. "S-So who's your friend?"

The blond felt his blood run cold, he never did consider this...introducing them to his friends..."U-Um this is Murasaki-chan, Murasaki this is Sakura-chan!" The shorter of the two extended her hand with a bright smile, earning only a confused head tilt from the taller, "Sorry...she's still new here, I'm trying to find a book to teach her how to talk, where she's from they just use...um...a sign language..." Technically he wasn't wrong, from what he saw their body language was just as important as their memory sharing.

That brought a snort from the girl, "You, teach?"

The blond pouted, "That's what I said! But the old man thinks I can, and if he thinks I can do it then I will!"

"Old man?"

"Ya, Sarutobi-jii!"

Her eyebrow started to twitch uncontrollably, "SHOW SOME RESPECT!"

The next happened in a space of a few breaths, Sakura had balled up her fist.

Naruto's eyes scrunched shut, bracing for the impact he knew was coming.

And Murasaki acted.

Before Sakura could so much as rear back her arm she suddenly felt a set _very_ sharp nails pressed to her neck even as the found herself lifted from the ground and slammed against a wall, even as her head swam from the impact she could hear the hissing and Naruto's shocked squawk, "Murasaki no!" As her vision cleared she could see the purple haired woman looking over her shoulder at Naruto, who had a both hands holding back her other hand, a hand sporting short, but wicked looking claws. "Put her down! Come on! We have to go!"

Almost as fast as it happened Sakura found herself on the ground, absently rubbing her neck as she saw the odd duo vanish down the streets, the only thing that could escape her lips being, "What...the..._fuck!_"

* * *

This, unfortunately enough, was the way it went for Naruto throughout the day, every time he thought he was nearing his goal he would find that one person that Murasaki couldn't help but see as a threat, not that she could blame her. First was the store owner, then Sakura, who Naruto knew hadn't ever treated him well. Then came the smith of one of the local weapon supply stores, thinking it would be ok to 'accidently' strike a bit of hit iron on his anvil without securing it, letting the red hot missile fly, only a quick substitution saving the blond from injury. However, that was the worst of it, at least from a direct action, but the constant dirty looks or the odd person commenting on Murasaki had him, and by extension his companion, on edge.

Finally, after a day of rather fruitless searching. Being barred from the library and then another wanting to charge him far more for even the used children's books, he had resigned himself to what he did best.

Sneaking into a location, and taking what he needed.

It was something he had always hated doing, but the way he saw it, if they had just treated him like any other then he wouldn't be stealing in the first place. Moldy bread that a rat would turn from, well they owed him a few fresh loafs. Not letting him check out a book? Then they get to register a new lost book to the council. Rusted and blunt training weapons...well that was one place he didn't really risk breaking into, but a bit of sleight of hand out the door would at least make sure that his equipment was serviceable.

If only they didn't decide to put those anti-henge seals on the shops...but it seems they had caught onto his way of thinking one day when a teacher saw he had proper food for once.

Still, now he had something bigger to work for, and he wasn't about to be dissuaded, so as soon as the sun started to dip below the horizon he made a bee line for the one place he knew he could find what he needed, ironically the place that never taught Naruto.

The primary school, the common ground before the students decided to go on to be a ninja, or to remain a civilian.

However, if it wasn't for Ayame, he never would have been able to fill out that form that lead to being a ninja.

So, with an urgent image for Murasaki to remain out of sight Naruto went to work. Scaling the smaller side buildings before shimmying across the small space on one of the many wires that connected the buildings. Not for the first time he wondered at the things, wires and pipes that allowed him to easily shirk traveling the streets. I mean, if he, who hadn't yet graduated the academy could do it, couldn't an enemy?

With a small spin he let the momentum carry him to the roof where he headed for the roof access, a small smirk on his lips as he noted that even they weren't stupid enough to leave it unlocked. But then again, when one could break into the Hokage tower, a small locked door wouldn't be something to stop him. A few sets of sturdy wires and a pick made short work of the lock before he headed down into the darkened depths of the school.

This is where one of Naruto's worse habits would tend to act up, namely his mumbling to himself as he snuck about, thankfully this was one of the things his new family had corrected, not though any kind of coaching, or scolding, but simply the fact that their memories had shown with great detail how silence was your greatest ally, and the proper bit of sound in just the right area or the right moment could create the perfect distraction or trap.

Funny, when you consider how simple the concept was, and yet all that was truly taught was the stealth aspect in the academy.

Guess that was one more thing they were planning on saving for the Jonin sensei.

Making note of the signs he started heading lower and lower, a snaking path to the ground floor where he remembered the signs, posters and finger paintings that would mark the room he was searching for.

Too bad he wasn't paying attention to his thoughts, or he may have seen an odd...echo to them.

With a small smirk he finally found the room he was after, though he was a bit confused as to why the door was ajar...then he heard the happy murmur and cursed, there were no lights on, so there shouldn't have been anyone there.

Then he got the flash.

With a sigh he slid open the door to be met with the smiling face of Murasake.

Though she had something...furry...sticking out of her mouth.

Behind her lay the empty cage of the class pet, Lops the rabbit.

"Damnit..."

* * *

The trip back was all the faster, now that he had the package most thoughts of stealth had left him, only the burning need to get back remained. And now that Murasaki had gotten a bite to eat she wasn't as distracted either, the duo making the trip back in minuets as opposed to what had been more than an hour getting there.

What he saw there he wasn't expecting.

"Heya gaki! What kept you?"


	6. Chapter 6: New Additions

Disclaimer: I dont own Naruto, or the Aliens series.

AN: Sorry this took a bit, other stories and the holidays tend to eat up time no? Hope you find it tolerable. FYI, a good chunk of this was 'written' with a dictation program, so there may be some errors as it's still getting used to the way I talk. However, half my writing is musing aloud to myself, to see how lines and mannerisms sound, so ya...I have gone over it several times for mistakes, but I'm only human :P

Special thanks to Fenris1872 for taking a look and helping me smooth out some of the mistakes :P

* * *

Light's Last Gasp  
Chapter Six: New Additions

* * *

Naruto could only gnash his teeth in annoyance as he endured the trials of his sensei. It had been almost a month since the crazed woman had moved in, and if he had thought things had been strange before...

First, she had almost laid claim to the master bedroom, _his_ bedroom, but a quick set of threatening hisses from Murasaki and Sorairo had quickly made her re-think her sleeping arrangements...

It seemed the two hybrids liked the bed...

Then came the almost total domination of his kitchen, changing things from his ramen, and now meat, diet, to one almost totally of dango, though he was always good about hiding away his own little stashes of food.

His time in this village demanded nothing less.

Then came the training...or as she liked to call it, play time.

His taijutsu was something that was almost constantly being honed, as it, along with her snake based jutsu, seemed to be her favorite. Then came the chakra control exercises, something that was so utterly sadistic that had him truly wondering who was the true head of torture and interrogation division.

It had initially started with the leaf floating exercise, a simple enough thing where one held bits of vegetation to one's body using the chakra. From there it had grown to try to hold on entire branches something that was far more taxing is required more chakra over time, however it soon progressed to trying to hold on kunai while moving at high speeds thanks to said summons.

It had only gotten worse from there as she had made him learn how to stop incoming senbon using small micro-pulses of his chakra.

He had more than a few puncture marks to show he had a long way to go...

Truly though, this form of training had been helping him a great deal, although it led to his current, and most frustrating, training to date. She was trying to help him learn to use his new clones, however it seems for every step forward he actually made he took two steps back.

For instance when molding the chakra shell he was having no problems, however the elemental aspects of it were still eluding him.

The duo had poured over the scroll and to his knowledge he was doing everything correctly, for the water clone he was supposed to envision his chakra moving like water about him initially something that was a difficult task however after Anko had dunked him in the river half a dozen times he'd started to understand how the water would flow about him.

Funny how a fish running into your head would tend to do that.

Still, she wasn't the only one starting to get frustrated, he'd been at this for three days already and yet still there is absolutely no progress. The shell would form just fine but the second he started to draw water up into it the fluid would spasm erratically before exploding in a shower of droplets.

Finally the teen had enough, with a frustrated growl he tossed the scroll over his shoulder and made to stomp back to the house when a hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt and dragged him back to the training ground, "And where the fuck do you think you're goin'!"

"I've had enough of this shit! I'm not making any progress at all! The old man said I had an affinity for water, but nothing's happening! Can't we go back to taijutsu? That was something I was actually good at! Or maybe some other kind of ninjutsu? Why does it have to be the water clone! I suck at clones!"

"That's exactly what I'm trying to fix you little brat! But you can't even focus for three seconds! Take a page from your little friends, they don't seem to have any problem whatsoever watching you, just sitting there, staring, all damn day!"

"That's because they actually like me! You're just using me for your Jonin promotion!"

Anko could only stare at him through narrowed eyes, "Is that why you think I'm wasting my time here you little shit! I could have awaited the two fucking months in order to be able to pass my trials! I know this is hard I know it's frustrating, but don't take it out on me, it's not my fault." That made the blond flinch, he had a bad habit of snapping like this when his progress slowed to a halt, he knew it, she knew it, he just had to learn to control it... "Now walk me through it. Tell me what you think you might be doing wrong."

Naruto took a shaky breath to steady his nerves, and slowly began to go through it step-by-step. Anko listened patiently mentally reviewing the steps in our own head, from the sound of it everything was going perfectly, there is absolutely no reason why, especially with his chakra stores, that he wasn't producing at the very least one clone, "Well you're right,' that earned her strange look, 'you're not doing anything wrong. I think we might have to go see the old man."

That made the blond teen perk up considerably, while he knew that the old man had been watching him through his globe beyond that he hadn't had much interaction with the elderly leader, "You really think he'll be able to help us sensei?"

"Well, it certainly couldn't hurt."

* * *

For the Hokage it was business as usual, and that means paperwork, loads and loads of paperwork. He hadn't even had time to check in on Naruto's progress yet, although he knew that the duo had yet to take on any missions. He was being more than a little forgiving with them given the fact that they were only a two-man team. He knew that the blond have a lot more trouble with missions on when the time came, therefore is important to get him as much training as possible. However from what he'd been seeing Naruto still struggling with the clone jutsu.

For the life of him he couldn't understand it any better than Naruto's sensei. That was the very scroll that he himself had learned the Water Clone Jutsu from, the only time he'd seen anything like this before was when a ninja had tried to use a clone of the elements of the hadn't trained in, however Naruto's affinity for the element should have negated any trouble like that.

A part of him was wandering if his symbiont hadn't played a part in this...

That was something that was truly disturbing to the old fire shadow, he knew this creature was having a great impact on Naruto's physiology, however if it could go so deep as to influence even his basic affinities then just how much further would go?

Sarutobi felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle slightly as chakra filled the air, two hands were at war with them, the first happy to have any distraction that could get him out of his paperwork, the second because every few ever shunshin directly into his office. Quickly the elderly leader sorted his paperwork and steepled his fingers before his mouth to give the impression that he'd known there coming along.

The small puff of smoke cleared to show that the teen who had been on his mind most of the morning had appeared before his desk, slightly above the teen with a hand on his shoulder was his sensei, the two looking more than a little irked at having to be pulled away for this, "Hey Old Man! I think I got a little problem here."

"Yes, I did see you struggling, and much like your sensei it seems as though you're doing everything properly… I've been doing my best to figure out what could be going on, and truly the only thing I can think of is that your affinities have somehow changed… Naruto would you do me a favor and try the paper test once more?"

" Well yeah I don't see any problem with it, I mean it's just a little bit of chakra…"

" Now Naruto one thing you must learn is never to accept of this test quite so easily, it does give quite a bit of information away about your capabilities. If, for example, someone knew you had an affinity for water than they would know to use lightning against you, as that would be your natural weakness."

The teen just looked at him with slightly wide eyes for a moment before nodding vigorously, "Geez never thought of it like that. Thanks for warning me!"

"Think nothing of it my boy, now for the paper, and if I'm right it means you're… little friend has a larger influence on you than I could've ever imagined."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly in shock, though the previous revulsion that he once felt at the thought was strangely absent, it seems his proximity with the two girls were having a greater influence on him when he realized.

Even if Anko and Sarutobi knew better.

After a moment of rummaging in the desk the Hokage came back with the little stack of papers, Naruto quickly plucking one off of the top before shunting a small pulse of chakra into it.

For a second the paper just seemed to shudder, the three ninja watching it with some small trepidation, before them something was occurring that simply shouldn't be possible.

The paper had a strange mist forming as Naruto's fingers began to pale slightly, the boy let out a sharp hiss as he dropped the paper shaking his hand vigorously, "It-it's cold!" The two older ninja only look on in shock as the paper was steadily paling, small crystals of frost forming around the edges as a cold fog began to drift from it, slowly spreading across the floor. However before the elderly fire shadow could comment on it the piece of paper simply dissolved into vapors.

Sarutobi looked on with horror as the rising vapors steadily ate a hole in the side of his desk. The trio taking a sharp step back, more than a little weary of what could be coming from that bit of paper next, the Hokage stared blankly at the boy for several long moments before smirking slightly, "Well Naruto… you certainly are surprising one, aren't you?"

"I-I don't understand Old Man, I thought I had water, fire and air?"

"It seems, my boy, my suspicions were correct from what I can tell your water and air combined to create some form of a cold based affinity, as to the other I can only guess however perhaps it is something to do with how your blood is changed."

The youth could only stare the gaping hole in the desk for several long moments before his eyes drifted from his sensei back to his leader, he thought having the wind element was bad enough, there being only two people on the whole of the village to possess it. However it never once heard of anyone having an affinity for ice or at least some other form cold, perhaps it was snow… he had no way of knowing.

"Well brat, seems our clone training is come to an end, if the Hokage doesn't have a clue then that's something were going to have to try and train later. Anyway, your bodies up to snuff, well at least for a genin… however now you're in for some real trouble, because now I'm going to get you up to my level."

Naruto started to sweat.

Anko's grin turned feral, "Now that's the look… I've been waiting for…"

* * *

Naruto's at home life was something of a… precarious situation.

Firstly his new roommate, although now that he thought about it he supposed that he actually had three of them, were at his side almost constantly whenever he was home, however his new sensei had a number of rather unique habits.

Chiefly among them was her addiction to the odd little dumpling dish that, she at least, proclaimed was the greatest food on earth, he of course thought that she was completely insane, after all who could ever denounce the deliciousness that was ramen.

That thought made him pause slightly, he'd noticed it almost a week ago, he found himself using more and more complicated words, as though his vocabulary was steadily growing in ways that he couldn't understand, after all he hadn't been reading any more than he normally had.

Although it might have had something to do with the book he was using to teach Murasaki from.

Naruto shook his head slightly to clear it of the stray thought, that was another thing he caught himself doing time and again these days, his mind wandering onto these two strange women that seem so interested in him.

Though he quickly had to set boundaries when the duo had tried to shower with him one morning, it hadn't ended well, he was pretty sure only woman could make such a squeal, although he actually had never heard one of them make such a noise before.

He is pretty damn sure that Anko would never squeal…

Though he had heard her cackle quite a few times, usually when she was getting the bucket of water to...help him wake up in the morning.

Although he was pretty sure that the strangest habit his new sensei exhibited around him was her tendency to throw wooden skewers into walls, trees, and occasionally himself, in new and strange patterns, though the one she was fondest of was Hidden Leaf symbol.

He was still picking splinters out of his ass…

Both Murasaki and Sorairo were quick to come to his aid each time however, with a quick bark he had them backing off, he certainly didn't want them killing his new sensei…

Although it was more likely that those two would end up dead at her hand he supposed.

Once more he cursed himself, his mind drifting back to the two, it seemed no matter how much he tried he couldn't focuses days unless it had something to do with them. He was seriously starting to wonder just how deep this connection with the two went, and what it might be like once their hive had grown.

Although at the same time a part of him was truly looking forward to this, after all, he had always wanted a big family…

However, before he could truly start thinking about expansion, he had to get them to fully understand his language. However, this was something that was coming much, much faster than he had ever thought possible. It seemed that where Murasaki might learn one word Sorairo would learn the other, and then after a few moments of staring into one another's eyes, once more in silent communication, they would both have it down.

It had only taken them two weeks to get the basics of the language down, now he was simply working on trying to get them to understand the subtleties of it, namely things such as slang, and metaphors.

Although that was somewhat amusing, for him at least, as he himself didn't understand every little trick of his own language.

For example, now that Anko was of his life he had to learn a whole new side of the language, the female side. As quite often he had to hear her ranting about one of the men in the village thinking that she was an easy lay, something he didn't really understand. Although it obviously had something to do with sex that was still something that was years beyond him, at least he suspected years beyond them given the way that the villagers were.

Most especially the way that Sakura-chan had treated him…

That was another issue he was having, anytime his mind would drift to the pinkette his thoughts would then be flooded with a collage of images of his abuses at her hands. He knew it wasn't something that the duo were doing on purpose, at least he was hoping they weren't...

There he went again…

However, this was something he truly had to be careful of, there was already one man in the village missing a hand, he didn't want to think of what would happen should the two really cut loose on a revenge spree.

Anko, however, had thought that the whole situation was hilarious, apparently she had her own fair share of ass holes within the village make comments or try and take advantage of her, so hearing about one of them getting a taste of their own medicine had been a true treat for her.

In fact she had been so happy, she found herself actually hugging the purple haired… woman. Something that Murasaki found rather… odd to be sure. However after a stiff moment the woman had returned with a smile, it seemed even with this relative stranger there were more than happy to be social.

Since that incident in the Hokage's office Anko had been doing her best to trying get along, it seemed she truly felt sorry for the way that she had acted there, something he was quite thankful for, as he really didn't want to be looking over his shoulder constantly to see if they were trying to kill each other.

Although he could only imagine what was going to happen when those eggs hatched…

Speaking of, it seemed that the eggs finally reached, what he supposed, was a normal size. At least they were the size of the one that he pulled from the scroll. He was already starting to get flashes from Murasaki about the strange spiderlike creatures clamping onto more people not unlike what happened with Mizuki.

He was always quick to send pictures back, showing the eggs either still intact or at the most the little creatures being on animals, something she didn't seem to mind.

"Naruto-kun…" the teen stiffened slightly as the set of hands slithered around his midsection, a hot puff of breath dancing over the back of his neck, making a shiver dance of the blonds spine.

This was what was really taking time for him to get used to, the proximity, the closeness, intimacy, these are all things new and alien to him. Although he wouldn't trade them for the world.

"Murasaki-chan…" he was quick to send a small pulse of images to her, trying to convey a question, what it was that she needed, as it was still rather early in the evening for any of them to go to bed, despite how tired he may have been.

"Naruto-kun…hungry, want eat?"

That was another thing, it seemed as though she wasn't wanting to cuddle, watch him, or be near the eggs she was hungry.

He turned his head slightly to give the purple haired woman a small smile, "Yes Murasaki-chan, I would like to eat, thank you for asking." The hybrid woman gave him a beaming grin before her arms squeeze tighter around his middle and started pulling him out of the room. He was quick to try and slow her down, digging his heels of the carpet. "Now Murasaki, what did I tell you about dragging people…"

The woman seemed to deflate slightly as she let her arms unwind from, her ruby eyes downcast as she looked somewhat sheepish, "Don't..."

"Sometimes is okay, just not all the time. Where's Sorairo?"

Quickly a flood of images filled his mind, showing the two of them watching Naruto earlier while he trained, then showing the blue haired woman running through the forest once more, seemingly intent to try and take down a deer this time rather than the typical tiger, for some reason they'd been avoiding them for the last couple weeks, as though they had something bigger planned for them.

The stream of pictures seem to catch up with real-time however, showing the guardian dragging a carcass back to the house already, and being met by Anko who was quick to stop the girl from dragging it into the kitchen like with their other kills.

Naruto smiled and gave a curt nod to the Queen before taking her hand gently and his leading her out of the room.

Seems he had a bit more work to do before they sit down to a nice meal.

* * *

Anko had to admit that she'd certainly stayed in worse places in her time, in fact the company was rather nice to have once she had gotten used to it, she quickly understood why Naruto liked having the other two around, coming home to a house that wasn't empty every day was actually something she had never had the chance to appreciate herself, having lost her parents of a young age.

After that she had thrust herself in the training, intent on becoming a strong as possible so that others may not lose their parents like she had, the two having been killed in a mission outside of the village, something that was apparently considered a black-op as she had never found out the true details behind their deaths.

Still the two were quite odd, always seeming to cling to the blond as though he were some form of lifeline, that or maybe they were just that grabby…

Although it happened to her once in a while as well, she'd be sitting on the couch reading a book or watching TV when one of them would simply seemed to appear next to her, the large, cruelly bladed tail wrapping around her midsection to pull her closer, the oddly soft, yet incredibly tough chitinous arms wrapping around her shoulders to ensure that she couldn't get away. The woman utterly content to bask in the closeness.

Was a bit unnerving.…

Still, it seemed that so long as she didn't try and obviously hurt Naruto, at least in a malicious way, the two didn't take much exception to her, sometimes even completely ignoring her presence, usually when one of the two was trying to vie for Naruto's attentions.

Though she could hardly blame them, apparently the boy was supposed to be their King, although how that was actually going to work was a bit beyond her, as far as she could tell the only one that truly listen to anyone there was Sorairo, and she only specifically listen to Murasaki, and Murasaki that would be the one to listen to any of Naruto suggestions, although sometimes they were just that, suggestions.

Shaking her head slightly she decided to put the thoughts out of her head, she had to deal with him most of the day anyway , why have him invade her downtime. Although living under the same roof it was certainly hard to ignore the trio.

Although she had to admit it was nice having three meals every day, even if it wasn't dango…

Still, she was quite unnerved at the potential as to what these things could do, she had seen the eggs, only once, as the two… creatures had gotten incredibly defensive when they felt her getting too close to them. Though understandable she supposed, after all if they were the only two left, then the small clutch of eggs was potentially the only hope of continuing the race, as strange or horrific as it may have been.

She had to admit, the idea of having something punch its way out of your chest after having been laid there by one of these…creatures was truly horrifying to her.

And she worked in the torture division…

She had just stopped the blue haired one from dragging in another dead body, the blood was a serious pain in the ass to get out of the tile, and quickly, as though summoned by her thoughts, the blond and her fellow purple haired woman appeared at the back door and quickly started dressing what appeared to be a dear, any hope of salvaging the hide was long gone.

Long, cruel lacerations ran down its flanks from where apparently Sorairo had made attempts to grab it and apparently had been tossed off by the mad animal's apparent flight, however one clean puncture mark at the beasts back a bit wider than her hand showed where the bladed tail had pierced it, neatly bisecting the heart, if she had to guess.

"Well brat I'll say one thing for the beasts, they know how to hunt!"

Naruto seemed to bristle slightly, his two girls stiffening as well, "Sensei what have I told you about calling them that…"

The special jonin gave a slight shrug, "Hey, anything that can take a deer with his bare hands gets upgraded to the 'beast' category. How do you think Gai got his nickname?"

Naruto had no clue who this 'Gai' was, however he had a feeling he never wanted to fight him. "Still, I'd prefer it if you didn't call them that, they _are_ learning, they haven't hurt anyone in quite some time, they're even speaking better every day. So please try, I would really appreciate it if you could all get along."

That made Anko arch an eyebrow, he'd been trying for quite some time to get them on better terms, ever since that disastrous first encounter in the office, and she really had been making great strides, however it seemed most of the time her little jabs, her attempts to joke were taken completely at their face value, something she was really having trouble wrapping her brain around…

Had the boy never heard of teasing? Sarcasm?

"Ok kid, you really need to lighten up...I'm _messing with you_, do you get that?"

Naruto gave something of a half shrug, one hand working with surprising efficiency at slicing sections of meat from the deer...with his bare hands...

Claws seemed to be a _bit_ sharper than she thought, she'd have to adjust his taijutsu accordingly...

Still, despite how grizzly the task actually was he was setting about it with an almost disturbing ease, as though it was something he had been doing a thousand times. "Naruto, why isn't this grossing you out?"

The boy just arched an eyebrow at her before thumbing the girl next to him, Sorairo just cocked her head slightly before giving a rather serene smile, not seeming to care in the slightest that she was covered in gore. "Trust me sensei, with what I've seen from their memories...I don't think the sight of someone being bisected would even make me flinch."

The to-be-jonin gave the teen a slight nod, she had seen the effects of this strange form of communication firsthand, the three were about to relay a whole day's worth of experience in the same amount of time it would take someone else to tell you what they had for lunch, really, their potential was rather frightening, and this was only three with such an ability, what would happen should this 'family' grow? The ability to link their minds like that war perfect for espionage, for learning jutsu and leading assaults.

More so, the ones that were 'human' could use chakra by the way they were clinging to surfaces in the forests, so wouldn't that mean that they could learn ninjutsu all the faster? And with their linking minds would genjutsu effect them at all? Or worse, could it actually effect _all_ of them at once?

Shrugging she put it out of her mind, just one more thing to be addressed in training. For now they had to finish getting this meat sorted before it was ruined, then finally get a bit of dango...

Hmm...venison dango, would that even work?

* * *

It had been another week for the fledgling student and teacher duo, one fill with more frustrations that an outsider may realize.

Chiefly among those problems was Naruto's struggles with his new affinities, no matter how much they dug in the library, no matter how hard they tried to draw on these unique elements, it seemed to be utterly futile.

first Anko had gone to see one of the few in the village she knew that possessed the wind affinity, a jonin by the name of Asuma. They were a bit surprised to learn that he was actually the son of the Hokage, apparently he had been out of the village since the death of his sister, needing some time away from memories, and took the opportunity to train with the twelve court guards that served the Fire Lord, having only returned about a week before the final exams.

Problem was the man didn't have any real idea as to how to help. With water you had to flow, and with wind you had to feel a degree of freedom. Where water would take form, wind fought it tooth and nail, only allowing itself to be sharpened and directed, it was one reason that there were no wind clones.

But the concept of combining water and wind? Order and chaos? No, he couldn't be of much use...

Then had come the new...additions...to the family.

Naruto had finally learned why the girls hadn't been killing any of the tigers these past days, seems that some of them had given birth recently...and they didn't want to...deplete the population.

No, instead they had waited for the cubs to at least be of a certain age, then had snatched a few of them from their parents.

Five to be precise...

Naruto had only found out about what had happened that evening when they did their 'normal' exchange of the day's events. Far too late for him to have stopped them. Two days later the teen was awoken by a thoroughly excited Murasaki bouncing on the bed, quickly causing the genin to leap from the warm cocoon with a blade in hand, searching for an attacker.

Only to have Murasaki push a strange snake like creature into arms, one a bit longer than his arm.

It took him several long moments of staring at the creature for his sleep addled brain to process what it was that he was really looking at.

Another of the monsters from their shared memories, the ones that would come from the hosts, the smaller babies that would grow into the proper warriors and drones in a very short time. "Mu-Murasaki?"

"Daddy!"

The blond gave the violet haired girl a strange look, but her expression didn't change from the grin she bore. After several long moments of shock on his part he started to see where she was coming from. From the few books he had managed to show her she had quickly associated their household with the various families, even the basics book he had been teaching the duo from had a premise of family to it, teaching you how to read words like 'mother' and 'father'.

However, that did lead to her quickly making associations for them all. Murasaki was of course 'Momma' and now it seems that he had become the 'Daddy' though he had no idea how she saw Sorairo or Anko. Much to Naruto's surprise the little creature in his hands wasn't flailing about or trying to escape like he had seen in many of the memories, but instead it seems to be...mewing? Purring?

Oh...right...tiger cubs...seems like they were already starting to take on the traits of their hosts...

"Um...Murasaki...not that I really mind, but could you be careful about calling me that around Anko-sensei..."

She cocked her head at that, "Why Naruto? You father! Family get big!"

He smiled as he placed a hand on her shoulder, the 'newborn' slithering down his arm and curling around her neck, earning a giggle from the 'woman' "Yes Murasaki, our family is growing, I just hope that Anko's ready for what this could mean..."

* * *

It had been _years_ since this had last happened to her...

She thought she had outgrown it...

Her eye twitch...

"S-So...'daddy'..."

It was Naruto's turn to twitch.

"You're now the proud father of five...kids?"

"Y-Yes..."

"And...what...now you can't train? You have to be a dad?"

Naruto just quirked an eyebrow, "Sensei...I know I haven't told you much about what's happening with me, but I thought that Ibiki-sensei had given you the files on what I had told him..."

"Yes, but these...things, they're not like the ones from your memories."

Naruto gave the jonin a small, nervous smile as he scratched his head, "Well...yes...Murasaki and Sorairo are special...but you need to understand something sensei, their kind very a great deal depending on what the host is."

Anko just gave him another odd look, "So, what, if they come out of a puppy then they'll be cute little fuzzy things?"

That made him laugh aloud, "Seriously? No...but they would likely be faster, and the jaws would probably be different..."

"And these...new additions...what did they come from?"

He gave her another wide grin, "Tigers!"

The young woman could only pale slightly, if the ones that came out of people made things like those two...who were faster, stronger, and possessed those claws, that tail, and probably the same blood like Naruto, not to mention that mental link...what would ones that came out of those monsters from the forest be like? "And...they're safe...right.."

He just waved her off, "As safe as Murasaki."

Anko could only shake her head, this was the same girl that had cut off a hand in the marketplace...and who would hunt so freely in the forest of death, to the point that they had the gall to take five cubs from the tigers?

Oh dear...

"They'll only need a few days to finish maturing from what I understand, then maybe we can all start training together!"

Naruto's grin was infectious...however, for his sensei she could only feel a small chill run up her spine...from birth to full grown in only five days? And now he wanted to train _with_ them?

Looks like she had a few favors to call in...she could only hope Tsume still remembered that favor she owed her...


End file.
